The rumours were true. Soon-to-retire Dani Pedrosa has cut his ties with Honda, for whom he has ridden throughout his career, to sign up as factory tester for KTM.

The two-year deal, done behind closed doors, was finally confirmed on the first day of the Australian GP.

The triple champion and veteran of 13 years in the premier MotoGP class will work alongside the Austrian factory’s current tester Mika Kallio, developing the KTM RC16 for the bike’s third year of competition.

The team is to be headed by Johann Zarco, alongside current rider Pol Espargaro, with a new factory-level satellite team run by former Yamaha allies Tech 3, fielding class rookie Miguel Oliveira and current first-year rider Hafizh Syahrin.

Motorsports Director Pit Beirer said: “To have a rider of Dani’s skill and experience as part of our MotoGP project is another strong sign that we are moving in the right direction, and we are still pushing as hard as we can.”

Although the Austrian team has failed to match its first-year race results this season, the gap to the winner has been consistently slashed.

Beirer continued: “We have seen how competitive MotoGP is this year, and how fractions of a second can sometimes hide real progress and valuable lessons.”

Pedrosa will be rejoining his long-time former crew chief Mike Leitner, now the MotoGP team manager.

KTM is on the back foot in developing its 2019 machine, after full-time tester Kallio was put out for the rest of the year by a bad accident as a wild card at the German GP in July; and then Pol Espargaro was also badly hurt at Brno, missing several races after also rebreaking his collarbone at Aragon on his return.

By Michael Scott

Photos GnG