Poncharal thanks Pedrosa for Gardner, Fernandez advice

Alongside his own testing duties for KTM at Jerez, Dani Pedrosa kept a close eye on the factory's two rookies, Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez.

The Tech3 team-mates, first and second in this year's Moto2 World Championship, were taking part in their first real test on the RC16 after a 30-lap shakedown at Misano in September.

The pair finished an evenly matched 20th and 22nd, within two-seconds of fastest man Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), less than one-second from the top KTM of Brad Binder and just a few tenths from fastest rookie Fabio di Giannantonio (Ducati).

Afterwards, Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal revealed 54-time grand prix winner Pedrosa had been watching the KTM rookies from trackside and then feeding back 'important' advice.

“I would like to thank Dani Pedrosa as well for his role as a test rider, but also as an adviser," Poncharal said. "He came to see our riders after having been on the service road watching them and every single bit of advice he gave them was very important and very helpful."

After the highs of two victories with Miguel Oliveira in 2020, this season was far less rewarding for the French team and KTM alike.

Now without concessions, the RC16 struggled at the start and end of the season, while Iker Lecuona and Danilo Petrucci made only one top six appearance each, leaving them last of the full-time riders in the championship classification.

While Tech3 has an all-new line-up for 2022 (although Gardner rode for the team in Moto2 during 2017 and 2018) the Austrian factory is also making other major changes, such as replacing factory team manager Mike Leitner with Pramac Ducati's Francesco Guidotti.

But with the final test of the year now complete, the workload switches from race track to factory as next year's KTM machines are prepared for the Sepang test in late January.

"Now it’s up to the brains inside the KTM Factory Racing department to sharpen our 2022 weapons, but I’ve got all trust in them," Poncharal said.