Joined Jun 2007
10K Posts | 1K+
Norah Head
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
The Petronas Yamaha was offered to him, and not once.
He simply felt done with the sport. I respect his decision, and while he is not competitive in this very moment, he remains one of the greatest, wether you like it or not. 153 podiums. I'd like to see anyone that calls Pedro a non-winner achieve that
To say that a long illustrious career minus a championship is insufficiently meritorious is absurd. MotoGP is contested by an elite group of competitors and regardless - when all is said and done only one guy out this elite group gets to be champion at season’s end. Armchair critics won't even be registering on Dani's radar at day's end, because he knows that nobody could do better given his small stature, and nobody can say he didn't give his all and brave multiple painful surgeries and endless rehabilitations to be in the sport he loved. It's not for nothing that he has enjoyed a huge fan base over the years.
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Joined Feb 2018
681 Posts | 535+
Italy
That is a fair opinion, but I personally disagree. There are a lot of things beyond titles that need to be taken into account when judging a rider, IMHO.
Anyways, Pedrosa won 3. Not exactly an underperformer.
With 153 podiums he is the 3rd rider in the history of the sport for amount of podiums achieved.
He has the record of the most consecutive years (16) with at least one win, that is also stunning. Rossi, Lorenzo and Stoner haven't achieved that.
He has so far won 54 races. Exactly as many as a certain Mick Doohan.
It is also fair to add 3 other things:
1) He has been severely limited by his body, both in terms of riding efficiency (as his height is 1.58cm) and body's fragility. The amount of injuries he sustained would have kept any "normal" person (such as myself) very far away from being able to profitably ride a motorcycle.
2) He is a true gentleman. This is not obvious in a world of sharks, big egos, psychological battles, media pressure and battles on-track such as the MotoGP world. In fact, very few men have been as classy as he has throughout their careers.
3) He really renewed the riding style in modern MotoGP, starting from 2006, when he was the very first rider to come out of turns straightening up the bike right after the middle of the turn. This style was soon "absorbed" by all his competitors but he is the one who invented, developed and brought on-track the technique that everyone is using nowadays.
Don't get me wrong the lack of a MotoGP title is a big lack in his career.
But there's a hell of a lot to be admiring about Pedro, isn't it.
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Joined Jun 2007
10K Posts | 1K+
Norah Head
Joined Jun 2016
642 Posts | 244+
Santa Cruz, Cal
Whoa, whoa, whoa. While I might agree with your previous points. These are really stretching things. Pedrosa won because of his size, not in spite of it. I doubt he would have won those championships if he was Marco S. size. Honda built the 2007 and beyond bikes around Dani.
He renewed what? His teammate, Nicky Hayden, who actually won a championship, did this all the time, he was a flat-tracker, remember? And so did Capirossi on the Ducati.
I can, just to be a real p.i.t.a., argue the gentleman part, since he took out Nicky when Nicky was fighting for the championship. He would have gotten a Map8, if the electronics were around then.
Geebuz, the little guy was good, but come-on, let us not rewrite history.
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
His size is a damned if you do damned it you don't proposition. Mostly tho, reasonable minds agree, his lack of girth was a detriment in that it made it so hard to get sufficient heat in the front time, and made him over-prone to injury. Yet despite that, he had championships in 125 and 250 and scored way more wins in premiere class than Nicky ever did.
Respectfully, speculation as to whether he would have accomplished less if he were huge and over-heavy for the classes he raced in is pointless. Mohammed Ali would no doubt have enjoyed less success if he'd been 400 Lbs but so what?
As to the 2006 incident it was an anomalous brain fart incident the likes of which he never repeated, at least to the best of my memory. He was one of the cleanest racers of his generation.
Joined Feb 2018
681 Posts | 535+
Italy
There is some confusion in you.
Let me tell you my thoughts on the points you brought up.
I have seen Pedrosa in real life only once but was completely shocked by how small the guy is, and I'm not a very big dude. He is so small and so skinny that I literally can't figure out how he can manage to handle a 250+ horse power bike that weights over 150kg, with all the muscular efforts that it requires.
His sizes in your measures would be 5"2 height and a weight of 105 lb. Think that's not a disadvantage? Think he would have broken as many bones as he did if his body wasn't so small and fragile?
Marco S., that you mention, was blazing fast on 125s and won a 250 title, so your own statement contradicts itself. What Marco could have done throughout his career tho, we unfortunately will never know.
Honda did build their bike around him and that is one of the many reasons for which I stated that the lack of a GP title is quite remarkable for Dani.
I do remember Hayden very well, as well as I do remember he was a flat tracker, but this has nothing to do with Pedro. Hayden introduced the proper flat track slides in motoGP, which was amazing, but didn't renew the riding style as much as Dani did.
Dani, not having the muscular strenght nor the ability to cover enough space with his body to "accompany" the bike out of the turn, started to straighten his motorcycle up right after the middle of the turn (and this was the only situation in which his size helped him). This immediately made him significantly faster, especially on narrower turns, and was soon absorbed by all riders some of them, including Rossi, added this technique to a very smooth riding style and it took them a few years to do so.
As per the gentleman part....he crashed, and by some real bad luck Nicky was in front of him. What would this have to do with being or not being a gentleman? He didn't do it on purpose and is however one of the very few times (2 in total, I think) where he took down a rider, both times not on purpose.
EDIT: I have no clue what a p.i.t.a. is
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Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
The measure around anything; circumference. IE: size, a thing directly related to mass. No, not talking .... size.
Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
Dani’s size was a detriment in the GP class . His lack of height was especially troublesome as he couldn’t move his body around and shift what little weight he hadto where it needed to be to heat the tires. It also hindered his braking . If on occasion the bike was hooking up for him, he was unbeatable. People talk about Rossi’s height being a detriment but it’s actually one of his biggest attributes as he can move around on the bike in search of the right weight distribution.
Joined Jun 2016
642 Posts | 244+
Santa Cruz, Cal
Yeah, so you guys are saying Honda made him their number one rider because he was too small? Give me a break. They saw the advantage of him weighing less, and it worked during the 800 era. No one brought up the heating of tires and his diminutive size hampering his results UNTIL they went back to liter bikes. Respectfully, stop rewriting motorcycle history. His size was an advantage for years. Edit: Please recall that Pedrosa, and secondarily Stoner, dominated starts during the 800 era because of size. Lorenzo took over when they went back to liter bikes.
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Joined Aug 2008
6K Posts | 748+
Thailand
Joined Jun 2007
10K Posts | 1K+
Norah Head
Joined Aug 2007
11K Posts | 3K+
Pomona NY
You're promoting a false equivalency. They didn't hire him because he was too small. He was a proven talent in the smaller classes. And Honda, were the ones who were pushing the idea of the 800 class and they were short-sighted in thinking of their rider the way they think of parts and bits from the bike: they were very much mistaken in their thinking, as his small size was still detrimental to his efforts. Your thinking is also defective in that regard. It's the equivalent of people who in essence implied the Ducati rode itself. Pedrosa didn't win races "because" he was small. He won races despite being small. It didn't hurt that the HRC bikes were that much more competitive due to the massive head start they had as they'd been developing the bike way before their competitors.
Phy j
He had a pretty good first season on a 990, other than the stupid move (revved up by Puig) on Nicky, and his best season ever was in 2012, the first season of the liter bikes.
I am sure Honda thought he was the perfect rider to fit with their mass centralisation engineering theory/philosophy/whatever, but they were wrong as you say, and now he is getting to his mid 30s, oft injured, and can’t get heat into the current control tire.
He had a pretty good first season on a 990, other than the stupid move (revved up by Puig) on Nicky, and his best season ever was in 2012, the first season of the liter bikes.
I am sure Honda thought he was the perfect rider to fit with their mass centralisation engineering theory/philosophy/whatever, but they were wrong as you say, and now he is getting to his mid 30s, oft injured, and can’t get heat into the current control tire.
Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
how did it work in the 800 era, Honda never sniffed a title on the 800's till they hired Casey.
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Joined Feb 2007
11K Posts | 2K+
Tennessee
https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/opinion/motogp/danis-golden-uphill-career
For those who don’t understand why Dani’s diminutive size was a detriment to his career.
For those who don’t understand why Dani’s diminutive size was a detriment to his career.
Joined Feb 2018
681 Posts | 535+
Italy
Thanks for sharing. I hope this will help some brilliant minds who think he was advantaged by his body to reconsider.
