The result that Dani Pedrosa recorded on his return to Jerez

Dani Pedrosaretired from competition at the end of the 2018 season and works as a test driver for the Austrian manufacturer KTMconfirmed this Thursday that he assumed his participation as a guest pilot in the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix without any “personal challenge”.

“The main goal is to see what we can get from this new format and how I can learn, because now the races are becoming more sprint, in the sense not only of that race, but also because of the fastest laps and the records are lowered. at each circuit, because in each practice session they attack for the fastest lap, so in the end you push that limit more and more”, explained Pedrosa at the Media Day of official KTM team.

“I have some tests to do on the bike and the challenge of understanding how we can improve the bike for the fastest lap. One of the challenges is to do fast laps on the tires, to see what limitations and how far we can improve.” comment Pedrosa about those challenges.

“A certain result doesn’t mark me, because I don’t have any reference and I don’t know where I am exactly, because the times were lowered in all the circuits and I rode alone here. We didn’t set a result as a goal, but we shot in some decent times and depending on the track conditions”, assures convinced Pedrosa.

“With our training team, what we experienced was the opposite, because we didn’t have enough tires to do that style and we had to conserve the tires and push it to the end, and in many situations the feedback may be different because we are faster or because we are using tires with more grip and trying to see what we can learn from that, because we will use more new tires,” said the KTM tester.

“Another reason for doing the ‘wild-card’ is due to the fact that the test tires are not paid here, so I can continue testing things on the bike and at the end of the Grand Prix I can subconsciously have a difference to discuss. this with the technicians when I train, and so I calculate that a state where the track is better, can affect it one way or another. To see that concept from if what is the Grand Prix now”, continues Dani Pedrosa.

Regarding the conditions of the weekend, Pedrosa stated: “I will say tomorrow, I don’t know. We have already seen that the tires will fluctuate a bit in performance, depending on the rotation of the wind, as we have seen in the past. race, where there were a lot of crashes on Sunday. I don’t know if that’s the reason, but the conditions in the last test were pretty good, we’ll see what happens this weekend.”

He was not impressed with the fact that he returned to competition. “On the contrary, because being retired for a long time slows you down a bit, you adapt to that silence and the state of not having stress and to make that leap again, with that instinct, it’s quite difficult sometimes Sometimes you leave this and that. is something that I have to assume in the best way, because as we saw they all came out very well”.

“The important part is to try to do the work properly from the factory, with the technical team in the test group, to eliminate that process of having to work too much on the weekend, because the conditions of the grand prix are not Every driver, each team and each circuit has specifications, but within an acceptable window,” continued Pedrosa.

Pedrosa had no hesitation in explaining some of the improvements on the KTM RC 16, stating: “Regarding the aerodynamics, I think we have taken a step and it is better; if there is anything left that we still haven’t improved or as much as we’d like, this will be the aspect of the fastest lap, because we make a mistake somewhere there”.

“We also saw that our starts and our race pace were good, and the potential of the bike works well in the race. I think the most critical point is the fastest lap and last year there was We got points in those where the moto was running very well and others where it was pretty bad, so we reduced that gap even more,” continued Pedrosa.

“With the three different circuits we had in the first three races, the drivers adapted well from the first moment and as a black point, it was that moment to take a lap and maybe overtake, I would know better on Sunday. “, he assured.