Danilo Petrucci - 'Our plan is to mainly work on the setup'

New KTM Tech 3 rider Danilo Petrucci closes out the penultimate day of MotoGP testing in P19, as he looks to find solutions to KTM's struggles in Qatar. 

Scorching lap times were again the theme of day four in Qatar, as Maverick Vinales joined Jack Miller and Fabio Quartararo in breaking the official MotoGP lap record in Qatar. 

Yamaha and Ducati have been the obvious standouts so far along with Repsol Honda's Pol Espargaro, but for KTM, it continues to be a difficult start to 2021 testing. 

Petrucci is the only new rider aboard an RC16 in 2021 after six years with Ducati, and has lamented the lack of set up work done as it stands for the slower lap times.

"Let's say we lost an amount of time to try something that we can understand if it's better or not. But unfortunately we haven't worked on the setup so much, for this reason my lap time is not the best," said the Italian. 

"But for sure we haven't worked on the set up, and I need more time on the bike, but unfortunately we are still at the point where we were yesterday. "

In 2020 KTM made huge strides forward with the turning of the bike, and also the power of the engine.

Only Ducati and Honda consistently had a higher top speed last year than KTM, however, Petrucci has struggled to maximise the power and has been towards the bottom of the speed charts.

Petrucci said: "I'm not really happy about this. For sure we have a really really good delivery of the power, but here it has not been such a positive point because it's better to have maximum power, and we are missing a bit.

"Even if I wait a little bit more, it's then even more difficult. I am one of the slowest on the straight, so we have to work a little bit more, and spend more time on the setup to try to make more corner speed and exit from the corner with more speed.

"It's a track that prefers power, and I think we have to work in a different way, trying to maximize the speed inside the corner."

With one more day of running left to complete any remaining race runs, time attacks, or testing of new parts, the last day will be invaluable for Petrucci, who has been able to reduce the time gap to the fastest KTM rider every day. 

This has been one of the biggest positives so far, with the 30 year-old saying: "For sure my gap to the first KTM is always going down, I started 1.5 seconds, then 1 second, half a second, now nearly two tenths. 

"So I'm getting used to the bike, but for sure 1.5 second gap from the lead is too much. Because we saw in MotoGP that sometimes all riders are in a second, the first 10 in half a second.

"So tomorrow our plan is to mainly work on the setup to try to discover the bike."