Pedrosa, who retired from full-time competition at the end of 2018, made his second wildcard appearance of the season at Misano last weekend.
The 31-time MotoGP race winner finished fourth in both the sprint and the grand prix, narrowly missing the podium in each contest.
His performances were met with praise from all of the riders on the grid, with Aprilia’s Espargaro – who struggled to 12th in the GP – noting that Pedrosa’s form makes you question a lot about MotoGP.
However, he also added that it would not be fair to judge the quality of the grid against Pedrosa’s one-off appearances, as “Dani is very special”.
“Dani is awesome,” Espargaro said. “I really like the way he rides. He makes you doubt everything.
I absolutely love that Pedrosa just turns up every now and then and beats Marquez, his former team mate in the championship.