The beginning of Honda’s “calvary” in MotoGP had a more pronounced start with Marc Márquez’s injury… but not only that, Jorge Lorenzo argues that the non-hiring of Dani Pedrosa as a test rider by the Japanese giant is part of the reasons that led to their decline.
The former rider who bid farewell to MotoGP precisely while serving Honda at the end of 2019, believes that in recent years the path to follow has not been the easiest, also exacerbated by Márquez’s injury, in addition to the absence of the Little Samurai, as he explained to DAZN: ‘Under the same circumstances that Honda has faced in the last four or five years, including Márquez’s injury, I am sure they would have done infinitely better if they had Dani as a test rider’.
For Lorenzo, Pedrosa was a genius on the bike and managed – despite never winning a MotoGP world title – to do something impressive, thus leaving high praise for the prodigious Spaniard: ‘The merits he has throughout his career are enormous. I have never seen such a small rider achieve so many victories in MotoGP, it had never happened, which shows the technique he had to develop to achieve it’.
Who benefited and was insightful with his hiring was KTM, which has been proving growth over the years, much due to the sensitivity and skill of Pedrosa, believes Lorenzo, who once again mentioned the competence of #26: ‘In terms of technical and sensations, Pedrosa is a super sensitive rider who helps a lot to understand which components are right and which are wrong. He proved it at KTM and Honda lost a lot when he left’.
