Danilo Petrucci closed the first day of free practice for the French Grand Prix, fifth round of the 2023 World Championship, with the 19th best time. Back in the colors of the official team to replace the still injured Enea Bastianini, the rider from Terni worked to regain confidence with the GP Desmosedici, with which he had not raced since 2020. After closing free practice 1 in 1'33.168, Petrux managed to gain a few more tenths from his best time of the afternoon, despite a fall in the second part of the session.
Petrucci will therefore have to take part in tomorrow's Q1, scheduled for 10:50 a.m. local time, before tackling his first Sprint race, the start of which is scheduled for 15:00 p.m. over a distance of 13 laps. “ It was a demanding day, but above all exciting. I expected to struggle more, but It went well and I'm satisfied » commented the now pilot Ducati Barni in WSBK. “I have to get used to riding again but I had good feelings ».
Danilo Petrucci: “ I am very happy »
« This morning, I was less far from the leaders and I think I could have made further progress without the crash this afternoon which made me lose a little confidence. Riding this bike is awesome! Now my goal will be to continue improving without making mistakes. I have to recover, all the automatisms, and so many other things to do. I'm not far from the others. Before falling I had something behind me, I'm happy ».
He adds on motosprint : " when I got on the bike, I thought they had welded the suspension because it is so stiff compared to my V4R. Coming back without having tried it before is crazy but I wanted to try. It will be difficult to remove this second but I am not far from those in front ". In any case, he has no regrets: “ sharing the box with a world champion and riding the world champion's bike is a feeling that will never happen to me again. I don't know if it's my last time with a MotoGP but I'm very happy. It would be a dream to score points ". With a good rain, who knows...
MotoGP France J1: ranking
Credit classification motogp.com
