KTM test rider Pedrosa to race 500cc Paton at Goodwood Revival

The 31-time premier class race winner retired from racing at the end of last season, leaving Honda to take up his role with KTM.

Pedrosa will pilot a 4-stroke 500cc twin-cylinder Paton at the Sheene Memorial races from 13-15 September, and will partner amateur rider Joaquin Folch Jr.

Double 250cc world champion Pedrosa last raced in the 2018 Valencia Grand Prix, bowing out of MotoGP competition with a fifth-place finish in treacherous conditions.

The Sheene Memorial Trophy - formerly the Lennox Trophy, but renamed in honour of the double 500cc world champion following his death in 2003 - is a popular fixture of the Revival, and regularly draws big-name figures from the bike racing world.

Pedrosa will go up against the likes of current World Superbike rider Eugene Laverty, British Superbike's James Ellison, Sheene's former Suzuki team-mate Steve Parrish, and former grand prix rider and Isle of Man TT winner Mick Grant.

Last year's event had two winners, with 23-time TT legend John McGuinness prevailing in the first race, while double WSBK champion Troy Corser proved victorious in the second instalment.

Pedrosa first tested the KTM in a private outing at Jerez last December, but was sidelined for three months after suffering a shoulder injury while training in January.

He rode the RC16 for the first time this year during a private KTM test at Mugello prior to last month's French Grand Prix, though only completed 10 laps to test his fitness ahead of his full return to duty.

Last week, he spent two days at Czech Grand Prix venue Brno testing the bike in anger for the first time since December.

Suzuki was also carried out a programme at the venue. Pedrosa's next outing on the RC16 will be in next week's post-Catalan Grand Prix test on the Monday, which will be the first time he has shared a circuit with the rest of the grid since his final race.