Why MotoGP will miss its gentle giant

It’s hard not be excited at the prospect of Moto2’s leading riders so far in 2021 stepping up to MotoGP in 2022 with Tech3 and KTM. Remy Gardner, current Moto2 points leader, had his promotion confirmed ahead of the summer break while rookie team-mate and main title opponent Raul Fernandez is set to join him, as Autosport reported last month.

Though the likelihood of two vacant Yamahas for 2022 leaves the door slightly ajar, it appears the grid next year will be without Iker Lecuona and Danilo Petrucci. The former’s ridiculous lack of grand prix experience and horrendous luck with COVID last year makes his axing a bitter eventuality.

But it’s the latter who the MotoGP grid will miss the most.

Famously in 2017 naming his idol as loveable slob Homer Simpson during a round of fan questions at a pre-event press conference, Petrucci brought a fun-loving spirit with to him grand prix racing having forged an extremely unique path into MotoGP.

His road racing career began back in 2006 in the Honda CBR600 Cup in his homeland, Petrucci moving into the European Superstock 600 series that used to form part of the World Superbike bill before stepping up to 1000cc Superstock bikes at the turn of the last decade. Finishing runner-up in the class in 2011 and winning the Italian Superstock title, Petrucci found himself with a MotoGP opportunity for 2012.

Petrucci was signed by the Ioda squad to ride its CRT machine, which started off as an Aprilia ART machine before the team swapped to a Suter chassis and BMW engine mid-season. In his three-year stint with Ioda, Petrucci troubled the top 10 once – scoring an eighth in a wet Valencia race at the end of 2012. A lack of results was hardly surprising given the Ioda team was always seemingly on the brink of dying on its arse.

An 11th place finish at Aragon was the best result of a disappointing 2014 with Ioda

Photo by: Bridgestone Corporation

“Yeah, let’s say my career has been unique because I joined MotoGP in 2012 and I never rode a grand prix bike, grand prix tyres, grand prix circuits,” Petrucci remembers as he sits down for a virtual chat with Autosport ahead of the German GP.

“I was completely new. I was fast but no-one knew me and I didn’t know anyone in the paddock and any tracks. All the set-up we did on the bike for me was really another world. Also that year I had a CRT bike that was maybe the slowest bike that I ever rode, because it was slower even than the Superstock bike. But was a great memory.”

Very few riders who rode CRTs had long MotoGP careers. In fact, of that 2012 crop, only Aleix Espargaro – who starred in the class aboard the solid Aspar-run ART package before switching to Forward Racing for the Open Class rules in 2014 – and Petrucci remain on the current grid. Petrucci, then, was one of the ‘lucky’ ones. Except, luck had nothing to do with it.

"In MotoGP it’s always been a fight, but the fact is I’m not fat. I just have this body and I work a lot" Danilo Petrucci

For 2015 Pramac offered him a solid step up to ride a year-old Ducati. It was a golden opportunity that Petrucci didn’t waste, effortlessly outclassing team-mate Yonny Hernandez and scoring a maiden podium at a wet Silverstone race having given eventual winner Valentino Rossi a run for his money in conditions Petrucci has become famed for shining in. He doesn’t much care to be classed as a wet specialist, though.

In 2017 Petrucci won an intra-team battle with team-mate Scott Redding to be awarded a factory-spec Ducati in Pramac colours for 2018. And with Jorge Lorenzo ousted from his works team Ducati seat for 2019, Petrucci – a cheaper alternative – seized another golden opportunity, securing his maiden win in a thrilling tussle with Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso at Mugello. He would win again at the wet French GP in 2020, a move to Tech3 KTM for this year long-since confirmed.

Standing at 181cm and weighing 80kg, Petrucci is the biggest rider on the grid. This has always been an issue for him throughout his career: “The fact is since I joined road racing in 2006 in Honda CBR600 Cup in Italy, all the teams I went to complained about my size.

“This is the story of my life, then in Superstock also they said ‘we cannot be fast with your body’. And then in MotoGP it’s always been a fight, but the fact is I’m not fat. I just have this body and I work a lot.”

Size has been a frequent obstacle to Petrucci throughout his MotoGP career

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

For his first year on the works-spec Ducati in 2018, Petrucci managed to get his weight down to around 75kg. This was still some 10kg more than the next heaviest rider, but being at that weight for his body type proved problematic, Petrucci noting “I was really struggling to stay on the bike”. He added some weight back on, but the difference to the rest ranges from 15kg to 20kg. With MotoGP’s technical rules growing ever tighter in recent years, fine margins make the biggest difference – and thus, Petrucci has become a victim of physiology.

Michelin’s switch to a softer carcass for its rear tyre construction last year was a major problem for Dovizioso, but even more so for Petrucci. That has carried over into a difficult season so far on the KTM, the relatively small size of the RC16 also working against his bigger build from an aerodynamic perspective. Despite the fact the bike he was inheriting for 2021 won three races in 2020, Petrucci anticipated his struggle.

“I imagined it would be a hard challenge,” he replies when Autosport asks if he was surprised how tough 2021 has been. “Since last year with the change of this tyre, I struggle a bit. The construction of this tyre is quite soft, so I always struggled this year to keep my good feeling on the bike. But then I imagined it would be hard, there are not so many big areas to improve, just a lot of small things that I need to make it better.

“KTM is helping me a lot, the team also. Over 200km/h, I start to not gain speed as the others, so in the race it’s a problem, especially in the first laps. And then since last year I struggle when I put in the new tyre to have a good speed. I always had a good experience managing the rear tyre when it’s used and I’m always quite fast on the pace. But when it’s new, it’s like the rear tyre doesn’t support my weight.”

Petrucci has qualified no higher than 17th in 2021, making his job on Sundays harder. His best dry result was a ninth in an attritional Italian GP, while the flag-to-flag conditions at Le Mans let Petrucci shine as he worked his way from 17th to fifth. But his take from the first nine races of 2021 has been just 26 points, leaving him an anonymous 17th in the standings.

Petrucci has a lot of support within the KTM camp, motorsport boss Pit Beirer telling Autosport: “We still have a job to do here in this paddock, we are not done, we will not leave the stage and fail to perform together. It’s a big target from my side. But he’s such a good boy, we like him so much, we like to work with him.”

Petrucci also said test rider Dani Pedrosa – his polar opposite in terms of size and weight, who will make a wildcard appearance in next month's Styrian Grand Prix – has been regularly messaging him with ideas to help him.

Slippery conditions at Le Mans brought out the best in Petrucci

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

But the rear tyre is too soft for Petrucci, who physically cannot lose any more weight than he has, so he struggles to qualify well. This in turns hinders his races, as does his size because he loses out on top speed on the straights – an issue only further impeded in the early laps by a full fuel tank. And with everything so close in MotoGP, there aren’t really any big gains to be made anymore. So Petrucci concedes his issues in 2021 are “not a problem of KTM – it’s a problem of me.”

Petrucci did offer his own solution to some of his woes: “I need to cut my shoulders [off] to be faster on the straight.” Said very much a big grin on his face, it was exactly his ability to laugh through questions about his problems in 2021 which is why MotoGP will be a poorer place without Petrucci in 2022.

Petrucci has carved an unusual path through his career into MotoGP and his is a true rags to riches story, starting life with the woefully uncompetitive and underfunded Ioda team to eventually etch his name into the history books as a MotoGP race winner on a factory Ducati – becoming one of just a handful of names who can say they went toe-to-toe with an in-prime Marquez and beat him in a race to victory. When you look at the names of those who have done the same - Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso, Alex Rins – you realise Petrucci is keeping some pretty incredible company.

"For sure my dream is to win the world championship, I don’t know if it’s still possible, but for sure I’m happy for what I did" Danilo Petrucci

Sure, he’s not likely to feature too highly – or at all – in any ‘greatest MotoGP riders of all time’ lists as the years tick away, but he likely knows this too.

“I am completely satisfied with what I did because I have been the only one who was able to make this switch and then during these years also win races and stay on the podium,” he says. “For sure my dream is to win the world championship, I don’t know if it’s still possible, but for sure I’m happy for what I did.”

However, he’s also not worthy of fading into obscurity either. And his story is far from over. It seems unfathomable that he won’t receive some decent World Superbike offers for 2022, though he admits the problems holding him back in MotoGP are likely to only be magnified on a Superbike and therefore “it’s not a thing I want to try”.

Petrucci celebrates victory over Marc Marquez and Ducati team-mate Andrea Dovizioso at Mugello in 2019

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

In keeping with his “unique” career to date, Petrucci revealed to Autosport he would like to switch to moto rallying and tackle the Dakar following his MotoGP career.

“A thing that I’ve wanted to try for a long time is completely switch, as my career has been unique, I want to go to rally and I want to try them because I’m quite good on off-road,” he says. “I already tried to navigate and let’s say if I cannot go faster, at least I can go longer. I want to try, I’m quite old for MotoGP but not for moto rally and I still have time to learn. Let’s see what the future brings to me.”

Perhaps a Dakar campaign could come with KTM. Beirer is certainly game for it. If he does turn his hand to the Dakar, Petrucci could well become the first rider in history to win the infamous rally raid, having also won in MotoGP.

Even if that bit of history doesn’t come to pass, at the very least he’ll grace the world of off-road with the good times he brought to MotoGP over the past 10 years…

Danilo Petrucci, KTM Tech3

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images