Currently occupying third position in the provisional World Championship standings with 121 points, Danilo Petrucci is only 6 points behind his teammate, and nevertheless rival, Andrea Dovizioso, whom he would like to overtake at the end of the year. The title seems out of the question, with Marc Márquez already having 185 points, but the position of best Ducati rider would not displease “Petrux”. This Saturday, however, was not entirely favorable to him.
The first free practice session already did not start under the best auspices, with Andrea Dovizioso first and Danilo Petrucci thirteenth at 1.042. As a start, we had already seen better. The first day ended for Danilo with tenth place, behind among others the Ducati of Jack Miller and Andrea Dovizioso.
Finally Petrucci set the tenth time in free practice due to the rain which fell on the circuit during FP3 on Saturday morning. In FP4, in the wet, he ranked a good fourth, almost a second (0.999) behind the leader Marc Márquez, and 0.015 from his teammate Andrea Dovizioso third.
Q2 was much more complicated. After the riders recognized the half-dry, half-wet track on wet tires, Dovizioso returned to his stand to change bikes and set off again on wet tires, while, just afterwards, Petrucci also returned to the box and was given his second motorcycle on slicks, which completely surprised him.
Petrux's amazement was quickly understandable with Andrea Dovizioso setting the fourth time in 2'05.590 to 2.837 from Marc Márquez, while Danilo Petrucci ranked eighth in 2'06.457 to 3.704 from the Spanish phenomenon. If Dovizioso was thus positioned on the second row with Pol Espargaró and Álex Rins, Petrux found himself in the middle of the third between the two Yamaha officials Valentino Rossi et Maverick Vinales.
This qualification was far from the best of this season for Petrucci, who started from the front row at Le Mans and Mugello. Petrux will therefore need to make a good start this Sunday to stay with the leading group, which will not necessarily be obvious from the third row of the starting grid.
According to Danilo Petrucci, “ Of course this is not the position we were hoping for. This morning in FP3, we were very fast. Unfortunately, the weather conditions for qualifying have deteriorated.”
“I entered the first lap a little aggressively, because I really wanted to be among the front rows, but the tire overheated.”
“I was sixth and came into the pits. There they told me that some drivers had gone out with slicks. Márquez was already at the start with slicks on the track and I was wondering why the track was dry for him. (laugh) ".
“I followed Marc Márquez who was sliding in the wet areas on slicks. Amazing what this guy does, whether it's dry or wet, or drying again, he's really fast in all situations."
“Our qualification wasn't very good, but 8th place isn't so bad. The goal remains a race place in the top 5 – or even better. We have some ideas for the warmup and then we will see what happens tomorrow in the race. Viñales and Rins were very fast with the soft rear tire in the dry and we will have to wait for them in the race. Apart from Márquez, of course.”
Qualification results:
Reference times:
Test record: 1'54.596 by Marc Márquez (Honda) in 2016
Lap record: 1'56.027 by Dani Pedrosa (Honda) in 2014
Provisional ranking of the World Championship:
Photos © Ducati
