Petrucci's “good feeling” returned at Misano test

Danilo Petrucci feels confident he has rediscovered his front-running feeling with Ducati at the recent Misano test after enduring a poor run of results since the summer break.

The factory Ducati rider has been struggling in the lower half of the top 10 since returning to action after the summer, taking eighth at Brno, ninth at the Red Bull Ring and seventh at Silverstone, leaving him exasperated at his drop in performance.

Petrucci's “good feeling” returned at Misano test

Danilo Petrucci feels confident he has rediscovered his front-running feeling with Ducati at the recent Misano test after enduring a poor run of results since the summer break.

The factory Ducati rider has been struggling in the lower half of the top 10 since returning to action after the summer, taking eighth at Brno, ninth at the Red Bull Ring and seventh at Silverstone, leaving him exasperated at his drop in performance.

Looking to rediscover his pace at the Misano test, Petrucci feels key breakthroughs were found by his Ducati squad having posted the second-fastest time on the final day of the test.

Petrucci is eager to carry his new-found momentum into the San Marino MotoGP weekend along with the added boost of being a factory Ducati rider racing on home soil.

“Racing in Italy is something unique and if you do it with an Italian bike like Ducati it’s even more special,” Petrucci said. “In the last few races we’ve been some way off the podium but after the good feeling I had in the test a few days ago here at Misano I can say that I’m ready to do a weekend at the top.

“It won’t be easy because also our rivals did a couple of days of testing and they will surely be ready, but I was really satisfied with the feeling I found with the bike and so I’m very confident.

“Let’s see if the track conditions are similar to the ones we had in the test, because it’ll be vitally important to be able to interpret them in the best possible way and also the tyre wear.”

Petrucci grabbed a stellar second place at Misano while racing for the Pramac Ducati satellite squad in 2017, but overall the San Marino round hasn’t acted as a positive circuit for the Italian with just one additional top 10 result (sixth place in 2015) since joining MotoGP in 2012.

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