It didn’t take long to spark the spark between Danilo Petrucci and the Dakar. Despite the retirement in the second stage (then he returned to the race with a heavy penalty), the rider from Terni was the revelation of the 2022 edition, managing to hit a stage victory on his debut. A feat that no rider from MotoGP had ever managed in history.
Yet not all that glitters is gold. Behind the good performance of “Petrux”, who in the second week had to deal with a few too many technical problems on his KTM, there were in fact more tense relations than expected with the Austrian brand. Which led him to look around and open the door to landing in the United States, where he will most likely go to defend the Ducati colors in MotoAmerica, giving up a full-time program in rally raids.
“My plan was to do this Dakar and then do the whole World Rally Raid. But even before the Dakar we had some problems with the KTM, we didn’t understand each other well. So, perhaps for the first time in my career, I needed to think about my human side first, “Petrucci told Motorsport.com.
“I said to myself: ‘Ok, I want to have an experience and I want to try to live in another place.’ Above all, I suffer a lot from the lack of dialogue with KTM, with the brand, and I didn’t expect it. said that maybe I can go to the USA and have fun, because my goal is to recover that happiness on the saddle that I didn’t have in my last year in MotoGP “.
“For this reason I had chosen to go to rallies, then I realized that continuing with KTM in the World Rally Raid was not an option. So I needed to look around and I was happy that my former bosses at Ducati pushed to get me back.” .
Regarding the reasons that make him look with interest at the Stars and Stripes experience, he then added: “I want first of all the human side, go to ‘Erasmus’, live in another place, have an experience, have fun with little pressure. and enjoy what I love most, which is riding the bike. But surely at the moment, this is the first goal because at the Dakar the key was that I was really enjoying myself, both on the bike and off. So this is the first goal: to ride and be happy “.
The program with Ducati is still to be defined in detail, even if by now it seems almost a formality, given that he will be engaged in the February tests in Portimao on the saddle of the Panigale V4. Which, however, will not preclude his return to the Dakar, because Danilo’s plans also include the idea of doing it again in 2023, this time with more adequate preparation.
“It’s not official yet, but I think we can fix things in the next few days. We don’t have a plan for the future yet, but I’ll do the tests in Portimao and I think the news is already out. I didn’t even know the days I should have. filming, then I read it in the papers, because now I was just thinking about relaxing and recovering. Then I think we can start planning this. “
“For sure it will be a very good experience, especially because even if I had continued with the rallies, I would have moved to a place that would have allowed me to train more with the Dakar bike. And in the end this offer came and I am happy. But I definitely want to go to the Dakar as well. Maybe at the end of the year I’ll do the Morocco Rally and then an adequate preparation for next year’s Dakar “, he concluded.
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