We still all remember the press conference organized by Dani Pedrosa last June in Barcelona to talk about his future, once the arrival of Jorge Lorenzo was made official in the Repsol Honda team.
The Spanish rider with 31 MotoGP victories ultimately had no nothing I could say to the journalists, effectively postponing its announcement at the Sachsenring.
And for good reason, since at that time, the native of Sabadell was in full discussion with the Petronas Yamaha team and Razlan Razali, the Director of the Sepang circuit and instigator of the Malaysian oilman's strong arrival in MotoGP.
Finally, Dani Pedrosa decided to stop racing and start developing the KTM RC16, but it came close as Razlan Razali confirms to Peter McLaren in the columns of the British site Crash.net.
We report his remarks with the kind permission of our friends across the Channel.
Razlan Razali : “The talks with Pedrosa were a reality. It was very, very close. He had spoken to Yamaha, and Yamaha assured him that they would give him all the support he needed. I sat with him, with Carmelo [Ezpeleta], and it was the same thing. But when a driver isn't sure whether to continue racing, there's not much you can do. But we were in serious discussions.
When he decided to stop there, he called me and thanked me for the opportunity. He apologized for not responding more quickly, but I can understand that it was an important decision for him and I respect his decision. He was very professional about the whole thing.”
Before the agreement of Jorge Lorenzo with Honda and discussions Dani Pedrosa with Petronas, the rumor had mentioned the Majorcan pilot in the Malaysian structure, and Razlan Razali confirms that the fire was indeed the cause of the smoke…
“At that time, having a MotoGP team was still just a concept. Nothing was set in stone, and we couldn't even talk to anyone at this point. But paddock rumors started to circulate and he [Lorenzo] thought we were preparing the team just for him. This was not the case.
But of course he took everyone by surprise and joined Honda, which is good because he would have been expensive for our budget anyway! »
For the first time, Yamaha offered its satellite team the possibility of using factory “A Spec” motorcycles, equivalent to those of the official team, whereas until now only “B Spec” were available. for the Tech3 team.
The “A Spec” obviously cost more but Razlan Razali recognizes that Petronas was willing to finance it, even if ultimately, Dani Pedrosa having declined the offer, alone Franco Morbidelli will have it this season.
“We want to be competitive. We don't want to just fill the grid. That's why we made the decision and negotiated for a factory machine. Initially, there were two. But then [the Pedrosa hypothesis] collapsed.
But Frankie was always an automatic choice. He was always in the equation, whether the top driver was Pedrosa or Lorenzo. And we always planned that Frankie would have a factory bike. When we ran out of riders for a second bike of the caliber that would deserve a factory seat, we said to ourselves: “let's look for a young rider”. We did not make this decision alone, we also consulted with Yamaha. A few names came out and we locked in Quartararo.
Everyone was very excited because we know where he came from and how he progressed. Yamaha liked it too, Dorna likes it, as do the guys at the French Grand Prix. I think he has the potential, and we are happy to give Fabio this chance.”
The original article by Peter McLaren can be read on the Crash.net website
The presentation of the Petronas Yamaha SRT team will finally take place on Monday January 28.
