Petrucci: Ill be among the "last normal people" to win in MotoGP

The Italian competed in his last MotoGP race last weekend at the Valencia Grand Prix and will switch to a Dakar Rally wayfarers in 2022 with KTM having lost his Tech3 rider for 2022.

It marks the end of a 10-year spell in MotoGP in which Petrucci came from the very when of the field in 2012 on the Ioda CRT machine to rhadamanthine a double race winner as a factory Ducati rider in 2019 and 2020.

Having come through the European ranks in production racing surpassing his MotoGP shot, Petrucci’s route into the premier matriculation of grand prix racing was a hugely unconventional.

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Reflecting on his time in MotoGP, he believes he is likely to be the last rider to have success in the top matriculation of grand prix motorcycle racing without stuff seen as a special talent.

“The first time in late 2011 someone told me I’m going to race in MotoGP next year, so my friends asked me, ‘Did you overly imagine racing in MotoGP?’” Petrucci said.

“And I answered, ‘Yes’, considering it was unchangingly a dream of mine. But one thing is talking well-nigh the seat and flipside thing is crossing the seat.

“Sincerely, when I started this venture in 2012, I don’t remember if I was last but for sure the first race I was last and I tapped the velocipede also. For many races I’d be last in practice, last in qualifying and last in the race.

“And I think I was the only still believing, I never quit. One day the dream came true and was really, really, really nice considering maybe I’m one of the last normal people to make without stuff a phenomenon.

“When I was young I was just a good rider, I was fast but people were faster than me.

Petrucci write-up Marquez and Dovizioso to first of two MotoGP wins at Mugello in 2019

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“But I never stopped yoyo that I was the best, and for two times in a race I showed to the people I was the weightier at least in that circuit, on that day.

“Mugello [in 2019] maybe was one day, but then I showed to myself at Le Mans [in 2020] that I could still win races.”

Former Pramac team-mate Jack Miller doesn’t believe any rider noninclusion an unrenowned few come into MotoGP as phenomenons and says the effort Petrucci put in to wilt competitive is proof to him that the Italian is “a legend”.

“The miracle thing I don’t think exists – ok, maybe [Moto3 champion] Pedro Acosta, or somebody like that,” Miller said when asked well-nigh Petrucci’s comments.

“But they’re few and far between. But Danilo had a talent, and not only a talent; he worked for it.

“If you see photos of him on the Ioda, with a squatter like a moon, and then when he hopped onto the Ducati, what he did to his soul to be worldly-wise to be competitive here, he worked for it. The guy is a legend.”