MotoGP winner Petrucci says Dakar switch is another world

Petrucci will make a unique career switch in 2022 without bringing his MotoGP tenure to an end older this month at the Valencia finale having lost his Tech3 KTM ride for next year.

The Italian will remain with KTM and Tech3 in 2022 but will contend the famous Dakar Rally, which has been a dream of his for some time.

Petrucci completed some desert running in Dubai superiority of the final MotoGP rounds of 2021 and has unfurled his preparations pursuit the conclusion of the season.

Speaking superiority of the Valencia finale, Petrucci says everything well-nigh his switch to rallying has been a huge welding – while noting he is yet to determine what the rest of his 2022 season will squint like.

“The biggest thing to learn in the Dakar is everything considering it’s completely flipside world,” Petrucci said.

“I think once in one week of training I did increasingly than the loftiness that I did all this year with a MotoGP bike.

“So, I’m completely new and fortunately I have some quite good skills for riding.

“But then the navigation is really, really something you need to understand considering here [in MotoGP] we talk well-nigh metres and millimetres on the bike.

“There you talk well-nigh kilometres, and you never know what’s going on.

“For this reason, I will do this Dakar, then we will sit lanugo a bit with KTM and will decide what the plan is for the year after, if I enjoy to do these kinds of races or try to do something different.

“But at the moment I’m quite rented doing that considering I need a lot of time to recover and especially, to understand how the race can be.”

Danilo Petrucci, KTM Tech3

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Dakar organisers confirmed the details of the 2022 rally last weekend, which will be staged in Saudi Arabia and take place for two weeks from 1 January through to 14 January.

The 2022 Dakar will count towards the new FIA World Cross-Country Rally Championships, while the event will moreover form part of the equivalent FIM rally series.