At Sepang in the three days reserved for test riders Dani Pedrosa out on the track for KTM, but his name never appeared on the timesheets.
"Dani is an 'old style' rider - commented the new team manager Francesco Guidotti - he asked us not to use the transponder on his bike. However, we can confirm that he has been lapping with interesting times”.
The bike you see in the photo is one of the spare prototype bikes without fairings, but it was no problem for the pit garage of the Mattighofen manufacturer.
"If you go and take a closer look at our bike it's very simple - joked Guidotti - with the parts of one Ducati you could make two KTMs!"
Not using the transponder doesn’t mean hiding your cards, it should be clarified immediately: if the other teams are interested, and they are, then they take the times. However, it did create a bit of a stir, so much so that some riders, even Stefan Bradl, started to wonder about the performance of the KTM of Mika Kallio, who had two bikes with two transponders.
“I am convinced that every day Kallio's best times were set by Pedrosa - said the HRC test rider to Speedweek - Because you need a transponder on the bike to be able to read your sector times. Otherwise our testing work just doesn’t work. Lapping without a transponder would be pointless. "
On the monitors the Finnish rider appeared as Kallio Bike1 and Kallio Bike2. On day 1, Kallio1 finished third on the results sheet, so Stefan Bradl might be right in his guess, because Dani Pedrosa, 35, has always been faster than his colleague, now 39.
Pedrosa was third overall at the Sepang 2019 IRTA test in the second of the three days in which all 22 regular riders were out on the bikes. And he has only done one race in his three years as a KTM test rider so far, finishing 10th in the 2021 Styrian GP.
This was however denied by Guidotti: "Dani did not use Mika's bike or transponder," said the KTM manager.
Be that as it may, Pedrosa, 31 victories in MotoGP, with three second places as best result (2008-2009-2013), 54 in the three categories, three world titles, is credited as being one of the best test riders in the world championship and despite his small physique, and indeed perhaps precisely for that reason, he is considered to have invented a new riding style in which you pull the bike back up as soon as possible in order to accelerate to the full. As he was so light that he couldn’t get enough load on the rear tyre, he needed to do it.