Danilo Petrucci’s rather unorthodox career route to MotoGP-which saw him progress not through Moto2 or 3 but through the Superstock 1000 World Cup- emphatically paid off last year as it was confirmed he would join the factory Ducati squad alongside Andrea Dovizioso to replace the sacked Jorge Lorenzo.
Petrucci had impressed the Italian manufacturer after competing on an up-to-date satellite Desmosedici with the Pramac Racing team for four seasons, having accrued five podium finishes – including a third place in his home race at Mugello – across his tenure with them.
It’s doubtless to mention that competing for the official Ducati outfit is a dream for any upcoming Italian motorcycle racer, and it was an opportunity the infamously emotional Petrucci was honoured to have received.
Things started solidly in his first four races as an official Ducati pilot, scoring top six results in all-although this couldn’t compare to Dovizioso who won the opening race of the year in Qatar and finished each of the first four races in the top four positions.
Petrucci really got into the spring of things at Le Mans though, racing to third and his first podium in factory colours, putting a real spring into his step heading to Mugello.
And here, things really came good.
Petrucci put in a masterful race performance to defeat Dovizioso, as well as Marc Marquez and Suzuki’s Alex Rins to win his first ever premier class grand prix at home by just 0.043.
It seemed he had finally arrived, the maturity displayed by Petrucci despite the huge pressure on him to perform at Ducati’s home event was a sight to behold, but a rather strange admission following the race is what really sticks in the mind.
During the post race celebrations Petrucci thanked team-mate Dovizioso for all the work he had put in to help him ready for his ’19 campaign, following this with, “I’ve reached my target for the year, to win a race and now we have to win the championship with Andrea (Dovizioso).”
Now, this sounds like a respectful and gracious statement to make – and it is – but the fact of the matter was that following Mugello, Dovizioso was only 21 points clear of him in the riders’ standings.
To make an admission of this nature would be expected in the final stages of the year, but after round six?
He followed his maiden success with another third place at the next race in Barcelona, but failed to stand on the podium again for the rest of the season.
He began to seriously struggle for speed-particularly after the summer break-with a fourth place in the German GP at the Sachsenring the last time he finished above seventh before the end of the year.
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This is simply unacceptable form for a factory Ducati rider, particularly if you take Dovizioso’s performances into account-where in the same run he won in Austria and never finished lower than seventh.
It’s possible his Mugello victory effectively vindicated all the dreams he had held when he began competing in the premier class, and just maybe his motivation began to sway afterwards as he feels he potentially has achieved everything he had ever wanted from his career-although this is of course just a theory.
As a result the end of season points difference ballooned to 93 points, Petrucci also dropping from the third place championship result he had held for so long to sixth.
His second-half of the year slump also coincided with the rise of Jack Miller, who had effectively taken over Petrucci’s current-spec Desmosedici at Pramac.
Miller managed to score five podiums across the year and narrow the points deficit to just 11 to the Italian, despite recording four DNF’s to Petrucci’s two.
Such was the form differential between the pair that a seat-swap was rumoured in the days following the season finale at Valencia, with Ducati sporting director Paolo Ciabatti sternly denying this and confirming Petrucci would remain in the main team next year.
One thing that is for sure though, Petrucci will have to pick up his game if he wishes to make sure his time as a top-flight Ducati factory rider will last more than two seasons.
