Former Repsol Honda MotoGP rider, Dani Pedrosa, is all set to return to the track later this month. However, he won’t be riding a Honda race bike this time. Instead, he will be astride a KTM RC16.
After Pedrosa announced his retirement from MotoGP, he was hired byRed Bull KTM as its test rider. Earlier it was expected that Pedrosa will start with the tests with his first lap on KTM RC16 in Feb 2019 during the test season in Sepang as per the winter test ban, which began on December 1 and runs until January 31.
However, since he is no longer a full-time MotoGP rider, he is not subjected to this ban. Honda also showed no sign of disagreement and released him earlier. Speaking about the same, Stefan Pierer, CEO KTM, said, “We are now testing with Pedrosa before Christmas and not only at the IRTA test in Malaysia in February.”
He further added, “We had agreed that he would not test in November. But now we have found a fair solution with Honda. I’m curious what comes out of this test. We’ve had a lot of new components to try because Mika has been badly injured since July and could not test.”
During the post-season test at Valencia and Jerez, Pol Espargaro finished at 13th and 17th respectively. And Johann Zarco, who joined the team post-season, finished 21st and 19th. Redbull KTM must be expecting better from Pedrosa and its other test rider Mika Kallio. Pedrosa will do his first test on KTM RC16 on 18-19 Dec at Jerez.
