MotoGP: Danilo Petrucci, what a character

Danilo Petrucci, what can we say about him that is negative? Absolutely nothing at all.

Petrucci has had one of the roughest and toughest rises into MotoGP the class has ever seen which we have detailed here, he has fought tooth and nail to get to the front of MotoGP and was rewarded with a Factory Ducati contract and he has now won two races with the team.

He is incredibly hard on himself, when it isn’t going well for him you can see it, he is an emotional guy and wears his heart on his sleeve and you can see it when he stands on the podium, holding back tears of joy, sometimes letting them flow. When it is hard for him he doubts himself a lot and has admitted he has thought about retiring from racing many times when it has not been going well for him, yet he always manages to turn it around.

He disappeared following his win at Mugello last year which was a culmination of a lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears which finally got him, not standing on the podium for the rest of the season and running around the P10 mark. He said he had lost all motivation to do well, he didn’t enjoy racing as much as it was like he had achieved his goal and then that was it, a ‘what now?’ kind of scenario.

Petrucci was a bit lost, leaving Ducati to ride for the Tech3 KTM team in 2021, yet this still did not inspire him to improve, not enjoying the Ducati life which also caused his teammate Andrea Dovizioso to leave after being with the team since 2013. Petrux was down in the dumps but Le Mans is always a place he does well at, qualifying in P3 which stunned a lot of people given his form.

Then the rain came, he is known for his pace in the rain, he’s a demon in wet conditions and proved that at Le Mans, holding off Jack Miller, Andrea Dovizioso and Alex Rins to take victory which must have felt like a weight off of his shoulders, making it 7 winners in 9 races, a crazy stat.

Hopefully this time, the victory will fire him up going into Aragon where he can double the race win up before heading to KTM which is more suited to him.

Featured image – www.motogp.com