By Matt Roberts BBC MotoGP reporter

Pedrosa parted company with his bike twice at Silverstone

If England's footballers are currently playing with fear, as appears to be the widely held reasoning for an abject World Cup so far, they should try doing their jobs at 200mph with nothing to protect them but a crash helmet and a kangaroo skin.

Unlike Messrs Rooney, Heskey, Lennon et al, apprehension was a feasible excuse for Dani Pedrosa's below-par eighth place in Sunday's British Grand Prix, the diminutive Spaniard having crashed heavily on Saturday, when he got his legs trapped under his bike as it slid across the gravel, and again in warm-up on the morning of the race.

Understandably, Pedrosa struggled to find a feeling for his Honda RC212V after it had twice been rebuilt by his mechanics, but it certainly didn't stop him from trying.

"The rear was spinning and sliding quite a lot and the front was pushing which meant that, even though I was pushing really hard, I wasn't able to maintain my pace," he reflected.

"Even though I had two crashes I wasn't injured and I didn't feel pain during the race. This means we can quickly put this weekend behind us and move on to the next race."

Aoyama will recuperate from his injuries in Spain

The next race is in just a few days time - this Saturday, to be precise - at Assen, and unfortunately Pedrosa's closest friend out of his fellow riders, Hiroshi Aoyama, will not be present.

The rookie also crashed in Sunday's warm-up but did not have the relative luck of his Spanish amigo, fracturing his T12 vertebra.

After spending the night at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, a second CT scan on Monday confirmed that the injury did not worsen overnight and doctors have informed Aoyama he can return home to Barcelona on Tuesday.

With Yamaha not planning to replace Valentino Rossi until the Catalunya Grand Prix on 4 July, the Interwetten Honda MotoGP Team will now be under pressure to find a stand-in for last year's 250cc world champion, otherwise there will again be a rather farcical-looking field of just 15 riders.

Dovizioso grabbed second spot despite his accident

There are walking wounded amongst them, with Randy de Puniet having damaged his thumb in a crash at the end of qualifying on Saturday and Ben Spies aggravating a foot injury first suffered at Le Mans when he dropped his Yamaha at high speed in free practice.

Neither injury slowed either rider down in the race, with De Puniet challenging throughout for a podium position that eventually went to the American in a thrilling battle.

Andrea Dovizioso also put a heavy crash behind him to take second place in the race and in the championship, whilst the weekend's other notable crasher, Marco Simoncelli, took a career-best seventh place to move level on points with team-mate Marco Melandri, who saved his spill for the first lap of the race.

"I was behind Spies and felt I was faster then him so I attacked two or three times but couldn't get through," explained Melandri.

"Then I tried a pass on the inside but I hit a bump, lost the front and there was no way I could save it."

Redding flew the flag with a barnstorming display

If the exploits of the MotoGP boys served to highlight the definition of bravery in sport, Scott Redding and Bradley Smith did their bit to restore a sense of national pride to the 78,000 fans at Silverstone.

Smith took a deserved first 125cc podium of the season in third place, whilst Redding came through from 17th position in a hectic first corner to finish just half a second behind the race winner and two tenths off the podium as he clinched an incredible fourth place in the Moto2 race.

"It was a tough start, I got hit from the left, the right and the rear going into turn one, which pushed me well out wide," explained the 17-year-old.

"After that it was just a case of getting my head down, giving it full gas and just seeing how many places I could claw back

"I was taking a few chances, but I managed to fight my way back up to the battle for the lead with only a few scary moments on the way.

"Once I'd tagged onto the battle I just gave it everything I had, but I just couldn't get close enough to put in a pass."

A modicum of such bravery from England's footballers on Wednesday should put paid to their inhibitions about kicking a ball into a net.

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