“With sports science and fitness, it's definitely allowing riders to have longer careers.” Speaking before the final race of the season, Rossi paid tribute to Dani Pedrosa who has called it quits at the age of 33. Rossi said: 'Pedrosa is a great rival for me and I remember a very hard battle, the stronger one, in Brno in 2006 when he fought for second position in the last three or four laps which was very hard. “Dani deserves a championship, because he won a lot of races – more than 50 races [54 in total at world level] – and he was super competitive in MotoGP. We will miss him.' * Tune in to BT Sport 2 at 7.30pm on Sunday 9th December for the BT Sport Live End of Season review show. Suzi Perry and the BT Sport MotoGP team plus special guests, including Jorge Lorenzo, will review this year’s MotoGP season in full.