At KTM, we came down from the clouds of a good 2020 season after experiencing an ordeal during the first two Grands Prix of the 2021 campaign in Qatar. We put our noses back on the handlebars a little more and we await this weekend with interest the verdict of a Portimao track that its driver Miguel Oliveira dominated last November. We are certainly not in a crisis situation, but it is worrying enough to trigger general mobilization. With, for example, this call for his test driver Dani Pedrosa to agree to do at least one Grand Prix as a wild card…
A scenario that Dani Pedrosa has always refused to consider since he worked to develop the RC16. A work that bears fruit, but the disappointment of the Grands Prix du Qatar and Doha successively experienced on the route of losail pushes men to KTM wanting to convince their test pilot to compete. “ A race with Dani would be extremely important » said the sports director Pete Beirer. " The race brutally reveals all the weaknesses. We just saw it in Qatar. You are very busy with theory in winter and you build many parts and new motorcycles. But in the race it seems different than expected. This is why such a race with Dani would be extremely important ».
However, this is indeed a suggestion, a desire, and not an injunction. The same Beirer adds in fact: “ but for that we need a good bike and a finished bike, plus a Dani Pedrosa who is interested in racing. We certainly won't force it. But it would be our wish to develop a wildcard with him this year ».
KTM still needs to convince Dani Pedrosa
The idea would be to put Dani Pedrosa on the 2022 bike during a Grand Prix. Mike leitner Race Manager at KTM estimates on speedweek that the ideal would be to implement this plan in the last third of the season.
Dani Pedrosa is 35 years old, as Andrea Dovizioso. A three-time world champion, he retired from the championship while a Repsol-Honda rider at the end of 2018. He has 31 MotoGP victories and was runner-up in the world in 2007, 2010 and 2012, and third in the championship of the world three times.
