Dani Pedrosa was worried that he was going too fast for his machinery, as he battled with Valentino Rossi in Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix, prompting him to abandon his victory hopes three laps from the end.

A strong tail wind was blowing down the huge 1.2km back straight during the grand prix, raising top speeds substantially and putting a severe strain on Pedrosa's over-revving engine which, with hindsight, he would have geared differently.

"The wind was very strong today, so my engine was over-revving, which is why I decided to ride a little more conservatively in the final laps to secure second place and the world championship lead," confirmed Dani. "We had been expecting a wet race, so to get second today is fantastic and it's 20 good points for the championship."

The race, which started on a dry track after heavy morning rainfall, belonged to Pedrosa and Rossi. The pair quickly built a huge advantage over the rest of the pack, lapping faster and faster as the race went on despite a few spots of rain falling mid-race.

Pedrosa had taken the lead from pole sitter Colin Edwards on lap two, then rode wheel-to-wheel with Rossi until easing his pace in the final stages of the 22 lap encounter to secure second place.

"I started a bit cautious during the early laps because I didn't know what the track conditions were like, but then Valentino and I began to set an extremely fast pace," recalled Dani. "Lap by lap our rhythm got faster. I had the advantage through the middle section of the track, he had the advantage through the first and last sections. My Michelin tyres were working really well and we were riding at lap record pace all through the race. I'm very happy with today's result."

Going into the race, Pedrosa had been joint leader of the MotoGP World Championship, but now sits seven points ahead of Jorge Lorenzo and is the only rider to have finished on the podium at every race so far.

Repsol Honda team-mate Nicky Hayden is yet to climb the podium in 2008, and suffered the same gearing problems as Pedrosa - plus other issues - on his way to a hard fought sixth position.

"We knew starting tenth was never going to be easy. I crashed my number one bike in qualifying, then this morning I rode the other bike, so I started the race with the bike I'd crashed but it was fine," said Nicky. "I got a really good start and a good first corner too, but I just couldn't go with the lead group today.

"We had a huge tailwind on the back straightaway, so I was running out of gear. It made it so hard to get it stopped for the corner at the end of the straight, so a lot of guys were running wide.

"Mid-race I had a few problems, felt a few drops of rain, and my corner speed in the long corners wasn't so good. Towards the end I changed a few little things with my lines and the traction control settings. I started to move forward and at the end I was going pretty good.

"There was a lot of good battling going on but it would've been better to have been battling for a better position. I didn't give up, kept pushing and picked off a few guys near the end," he concluded.