2023-05-18 18:33:13
He was far from the best positions, but Danilo Petrucci left Le Mans being one of the happiest pilots of the last French Grand Prix. The man from Terni returned in a timely manner to the MotoGP World Championship to cover the loss of Enea Bastianini in the ranks of the Ducati Lenovo Team, the same team in which he was competing until 2020 before heading to KTM to sign a lukewarm farewell to the championship by handlebars from a satellite RC16.
The Italian returned to the controls of the only motorcycle with which he has been able to win in MotoGP, the Desmosedici GP23, a prototype that is now significantly better than Ducati that it left at the end of 2020, according to the number #9 at Le Mans, where it managed to scratch five points on Sunday after seeing the checkered flag in 11th position, 29 seconds behind the winner, Marco Bezzecchi.
Danilo described as “exciting” everything lived in Le Mans; already Thursday stayed “impressed when I put on the team sweatshirt for the first time and someone came up to me asking for a photo, I haven’t seen that image in a long time and seeing it again was a rush“.
Although ‘Petrux’ already met up with MotoGP last year in Thailand after receiving the call from Suzuki, he assures that this time it was “very different from what happened in Thailand“ because in Le Mans he went back to work “with the team with which I have won, in a circuit in which I have already won… it has been a gift that life has given me, as if it were a victory”.
Asked what he thought of the world champion bike, the Desmosedici GP23, Petrucci was full of praise for the Borgo Panigale prototype: “I would have liked to have had this bike three years ago, but nothing happens. They have solved the difficult points, which were the power delivery and the handling of the bike. From the first corner I already felt that the bike was much more docile in the middle of the corner. The transition between closed throttle and open throttle is almost non-existent, and that makes the bike spin when there is no grip or if you are leaning too far, and at the same time they have maintained the impressive power of the Ducati.”
‘Petrux’ does not hide that Bastianini’s Desmosedici “It’s the best bike I’ve ridden in my life, it’s a pity that it’s over on Sunday”, and although he knows that “possibly I will never get on it again”admits to being “charmed” for the opportunity he has been given at Ducati: “I even got emotional during the lap of honor. At Le Mans I have been on the podium three times, the French public loves me very much and they were delighted to have me here this weekend.”
Following this brief adventure in MotoGP, Petrucci will once again focus on his full-time WorldSBK job with Barni Racing, a project he is still getting used to. Trust in “To be able to take advantage of something here to understand my problems in SBK, I’ve been faster here than in my Superbike races, there’s something we don’t understand there. Soon I will have a meeting with Ducati to understand what we can do with SBK.”
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Addressing his problems with the Panigale V4 R, the 32-year-old explains that where he suffers the most right now is “In the back”, a problem that Álvaro Bautista does not seem to have“who brakes the bike with a lot of angle at the end of the corner, I think he has more support than me and thanks to his soft handling he can make the difference”, Petrucci clarifies that for the moment it keeps getting betterr “with the Michelin than with the Pirelli”.
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