Now a test rider for Red Bull KTM Factory Racing, Dani Pedrosa commented on the growing importance of the technological component in recent years in the MotoGP world.
‘It’s an important debate. At the moment, the rider focuses on other things, like getting the most out of the tyres. It’s true that, thanks to some technological aspects, some riders are able to make identical exits. This allows you to release the clutch, give it some gas because the bike itself already controls the turns and doesn’t go up. You don’t have to let off the gas or use the rear brake to control the bike on the exits’ said the Spaniard in a statement to Motorbike Magazine quoted by Mundo Deportivo.
‘Everyone can do it relatively easily, because the bike does it for you to a large extent. Everyone takes off in a similar way, reaches the same speed in the first corner and there are no gaps. In the old days, you did have to control the wheel that came off, the turns in which you fell, if you didn’t do a good exit lap… there were differences between one rider and another and spaces were created that other riders could take advantage of’ added the Catalan.
Pedrosa believes that at this point it becomes more difficult for a rider to distance himself from the others:’Now it’s like taking the exit at the first corner, or almost worse. You get to the brakes, you adjust everything with the brakes and the gaps get smaller. It’s harder to make a difference. The aerodynamics and the devices take responsibility away from the rider to manage the shortcomings that the bike may have when accelerating or in stability. At the moment, the rider concentrates on getting the most out of the bike he has, but not so much on controlling what the bike could do without these aids’.
Then the#26 concluded: ‘Until recently, I continued to use the more manual system, but I had to switch to automatic. When you’re with the other riders, everyone uses this system that gives you maximum gas and the management is done by the electronics. Everyone gives full throttle before releasing the clutch, so you can’t even hear the engine because there’s so much noise with all the bikes on the track at the same time’.