Pedrosa’s reasons for racing again at Jerez

In July 2018 at the Sachsenring Dani Pedrosa He announced his retirement at the end of that year. and in October KTM confirmed its signing as a tester after being offered, and rejected, by Honda, the mark of his entire sports career. That November of 2018, he ran his last race as an official rider in Cheste and after two years without a race and limiting himself to his work as a tester, he accepted a wild card to run with KTM on Styrian GP 2021. A year and a half later he agreed to put on his overalls again and run a new wild card in Jerez.

A few days ago we met Dani Pedrosa in his debut as a commentator for DAZN where he explained to MD that the decision to return to Jerez was “a joint decision of the team, it was not personal. We have several tests every year, we change things on the bike, there are things that can be fully verified with the official riders in some winter tests, some parts in the race, but when there are different change that appears, it is considered whether it is a good idea to make a wild card. We’re trying some things that in the past with concessions we could make some changes that we can’t do now and force the possibility of making some wild cards. Of course I have the final say, but I always try to put things in the right balance.”

vTaking to the boxing ring at Sprint every Saturday, he said he doesn’t regret saying yes to the wild card. “This is one of the reasons why we planned this wild card, it is very important to understand this new format, even though we have a lot of information from the team. But we as a test group want to understand it to see the dynamics , the speed at which you have to work, what happens in a Grand Prix. I have a long memory and a lot of experience in all previous formats, but now it has changed so much that only the stress on Friday is different from before. When I drive, I try to be compatible with the team and my mechanic.”

This is not a tester to use

Although no one will ask for results from him this weekend, where he also discovered a new Grand Prix format, in the Styrian GP he was not a typical tester, quite the opposite: FP1 11th on 1.045 and 1st KTM; FP2, 21st at 2.650, a session in the water; FP3 12th at 0″644 and 1st KTM again and 0″018 from the cut; in Q1, 4th to 10th slice. And he finished top-10 in the race after a big scare when he crashed at the third turn in the middle of the line and the motorcycles caught fire leading to the red flag.

“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 shoot for some decent times depending on the track conditions”, admits the rider from Castellar del Vallès who has a brilliant record in Jerez with 11 podiums, four of them won in 2005 (250cc) and 2008, 2013 and 2017 (MotoGP). And turn 6 is named after him since 2019.

In his view that MotoGP has changed more compared to his time, “the most important factor is that all of them are more dense in one second and that creates a very high tension and alertness and an ‘anxiety’ that is in the top ten and it’s getting harder to catch up and what you earn in training is what you have in your pocket in the race.”

If anyone knows his career living through the test of injuries, it is Dani, so he is a powerful voice, as well as a teammate from 2013 to 2018, in what Marc Márquez is going through. “We have to ask him, he explained a lot in his documentary about his suffering and ups and downs. He had a very good time for a decade and now it’s worse, but all champions go through critical that moment, major injuries. , which mark their careers It doesn’t mean that it is the end, or not, but that they mark, for sure. Very marked moments and that later they have recovered or have diluted and we are in that phase, we will see how Marc can solve it.”

Experience as a commentator

And this Thursday in Jerez he already talked about how he saw himself in his debut as a commentator on DAZN. “It was a great experience. I had a lot of help from the whole technical department, because they taught me how everything works and they helped me a lot. On Friday I found myself a little bit unknown, on Saturday a little better and on Sunday a little better At the same time that I commented on this, I thought: “My goodness, the next time I have to get in there, in the ring” (laughs).