Petrucci aware of ‘expectations’ for Ducati future

Danilo Petrucci says his pure focus is on delivering results for Pramac Ducati in 2018 as the speculation on his future continues to grow at his home MotoGP round at Mugello.

The Italian rider appears to be in a head-to-head battle against teammate Jack Miller for the second factory Ducati ride alongside Andrea Dovizioso with Jorge Lorenzo’s expected departure from the team at the end of the season.

Petrucci's situatuin seems more pressurised compared to Miller, who has a clause in his current contract for a 2019 option at either the factory team or Pramac while Francesco Bagnaia is set to move up to Pramac Ducati next year, but the Italian rider has also been approached by Aprilia for a potential switch.

While Ducati holds the option for Petrucci to join the factory team in 2019, the 27-year-old wants to concentrate on his current campaign which he hopes will earn momentum for his future – having conceded at Le Mans his podium at the French round last time out will have only helped his case at Ducati.

“I will do my normal things and try to do my best,” Petrucci said. “I am talking about the future and I want to confirm my speed from last year. We will work in the way worked in Le Mans, controlling every detail, and then we’ll see. The podium is a target but we’ll discover it on Sunday afternoon because it is very difficult to predict the race in MotoGP.

“I have a lot of expectations as I know I’m fighting for a factory seat but it is not only the Ducati seat.

“After Le Mans we have arrived in a very positive way, after a podium, which is special but after last year and two weeks ago I know that a target for me is to be on the podium. It won’t be easy as we weren’t here for testing so we’ll start a step behind. We will try to recover as fast as possible.”

When quizzed on facing off against his teammate Miller for his future at Ducati, Petrucci feels it is unhelpful to concentrate on one particular rider and is aiming to beat as many rivals as he can.

“Jack is very, very fast and he showed that during the previous races,” he said. “I have to be in front of as many people as possible so I don’t care about being in front of one rider of another. I always try to be faster than anyone.”

12 months ago Petrucci claimed his second career podium finish with third place at Mugello which kick-started a strong run of form in the middle chunk of the MotoGP campaign which saw him record three further rostrums in 2017.