The Spaniard, leading the championship after the first four races of the season, finished less than two tenths of a second ahead of Jorge Lorenzo in the morning, and just 0.049 seconds in front of Casey Stoner in the afternoon.
Pedrosa admits the battle is so tight at the top that no one can afford to relax.
"We worked very hard today because we heard that the weather forecast for tomorrow isn't so good," said Pedrosa.
"At least we did get two hours of dry track time, which we dedicated to quickly finding a good basic set-up and then doing some work on tyre choice for Sunday's race.
"The revised part of the circuit seems quite bumpy, so I ran straight on there several times during the day, same as a few other riders.
"Overall I'm feeling quite happy about my machine after this first day but we must keep our heads down and keep working hard because the top few riders are all very close together on laptimes."
Teammate Nicky Hayden did not enjoy such a positive day, the American not feeling comfortable with the braking at the Le Mans circuit.
Hayden finished over a second behind Pedrosa in the afternoon, and down in 12th place.
"Things didn't go as smooth as we'd have liked today," he said. "Braking at this track is so important and I don't have a good feeling when I'm braking. Straight line or leaned over, the front end doesn't feel so good. I don't know why, but I was hurting a little bit in that area in China too.
"We're basically a full second off the pace and that's a lot on a 1 minute 34 lap, so we need to sort something overnight. We really never found a direction all day, we were chasing our tails, so that makes it hard, and it's never good to fall behind when there's rain in the forecast. I know the team will work hard, so I'm confident in that."
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