Petrucci: Podium very helpful for Ducati position

Danilo Petrucci feels his second place at Le Mans as top Ducati will be “very helpful” to his position looking to secure his MotoGP future.

The Pramac Ducati rider says he settled for the runner-up spot after struggling to catch runaway leader Marc Marquez but comfortably outperformed his fellow Ducati rivals as Andrea Dovizioso crashed out while teammate Jack Miller finished fourth and Jorge Lorenzo sixth.

Petrucci: Podium very helpful for Ducati position

Danilo Petrucci feels his second place at Le Mans as top Ducati will be “very helpful” to his position looking to secure his MotoGP future.

The Pramac Ducati rider says he settled for the runner-up spot after struggling to catch runaway leader Marc Marquez but comfortably outperformed his fellow Ducati rivals as Andrea Dovizioso crashed out while teammate Jack Miller finished fourth and Jorge Lorenzo sixth.

Petrucci’s Ducati future remains uncertain as he waits for the Italian manufacturer to make a decision whether to take up his contract option to switch to the factory team in 2019, while the Italian rider has also received interest from Aprilia.

Petrucci is eager for a decision, which he confirmed has to be made by June, and feels his recent results will boost his standings but doesn’t feel Ducati should make the call purely on results from the start of the 2018 campaign.

“Ducati knows me very well and in a positive and negative way I hope they will chose the rider from all evaluations and not over the last four or five races this year but the last two seasons, that will help,” Petrucci said.

“I have other choices but I have an option with them that lasts until the end of June so I have to wait until they say yes or no and then I can look around.”

When asked whether finishing the Le Mans race as top Ducati will help him, Petrucci accepted it will only strengthen his standing with the Italian manufacturer bosses.

“My target is always to do my best in the race but for sure beating a factory Ducati is always important and Jorge is a great rider who has won a lot of championships,” he said. “For my mind it is helpful [beating Lorenzo] but maybe this bike is not 100% fit for Jorge.

“I’ve know this bike for three years as when I joined Pramac it was on the GP14 which was the very old bike. I think the choice for Ducati between me and Jack is because of our salary is less.”

Petrucci felt he had a sniff at victory after Marquez almost crashed out at Turn 3 but accepts the Repsol Honda rider had the stronger race pace and deserved the win.

“I was close to him when he lost the front at Turn 3 so I thought maybe he is in trouble but a lap later he did the lap record so I thought then he wasn’t in so much trouble,” he said. “I was pushing because Valentino was pushing me from the back but I was confident.

“My tyre didn’t drop a lot in the last five laps and I saw Valentino was two seconds behind and Marc was two seconds in front so I said okay maybe it is too late to win today. Second place for today is better than the gravel so I quit my attack. A podium in this moment is very, very helpful for me.”

Read More