Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa has revealed he had no idea how close Valentino Rossi was on the final lap of yesterday's MotoGP race at Laguna Seca and slowed down too much, almost handing the win to the Italian.

Pedrosa dropped the best part of a second to The Doctor on the last lap as the Fiat Yamaha rider was right on the Spaniard's back wheel into turn 11. Pedrosa eventually crossed the line just 0.3s ahead.

I got a good start, I was able to get into a good rhythm straight away and my pace was a little better than in practice. Perhaps my only mistake here was to slow down too much on the last lap because I didn’t realize how close Valentino was," said Pedrosa.

"Anyway, it was a great race, a great day and it’s a great feeling. Now I just want to focus on each race and get the best results possible. There’s a long way to go in the championship but there’s also a big gap to the leaders so I’m just going to take it one race at a time.”