MOTOGP: pedrosa seeking something in early laps

Dani Pedrosa returns to the scene of title-ending 2011 accident at Le Mans this weekend. The Repsol Honda star clashed with the late-Marco Simoncelli as they battled over second place last year, causing another fractured collarbone that ruled Pedrosa out of three races and extinguished his championship chances. The Spaniard returns fit, healthy and a close third in the 2012 standings, just 14 points behind team-mate and title leader Casey Stoner. On the podium at all three rounds so far, Pedrosa knows it's time to start winning races to keep in touch with Stoner and Jorge Lorenzo ahead of him. The key, Pedrosa believes, is to get up to speed sooner. "Le Mans is a hard circuit, quite similar to Estoril, a stop and go track where you need to prepare a bike with good stability, traction and acceleration,” said Pedrosa of the French GP circuit. “In the past I felt comfortable riding there, I had good results in 125cc and 250cc, but not really perfect in MotoGP, so I have something small inside me I want to achieve. Last year I did the fastest race lap, but I couldn't keep the pace before the crash, so I want to do better this time. “We've had three good races so far, I'm riding well, but I missed something in all of them, especially on the first laps, where I've been stronger in the past. I need to put everything together and if we get better starts, we will start winning races". First free practice takes place at Le Mans on Friday morning.