Petrucci finishes 10th in Teruel GP, Dovizioso 13th
Danilo Petrucci closed in tenth place the eleventh round of the 2020 MotoGP campaign, the Grand Prix of Teruel, held today at the MotorLand Aragón circuit of Alcañiz, in Spain.
After a promising start from nineteenth on the grid that saw him recovering till sixteenth place already during the first lap, the Umbrian rider was able to make his way through passing first Bagnaia and Lecuona, and then Stefan Bradl, to take the lead of a group chasing the pack after a few laps.
Meanwhile, Andrea Dovizioso, who started seventeenth, had also managed to catch up a few positions joining the fight for the top ten in the second half of the race. However, in the final stages of the competition, the rider from Forlì was attacked by Aleix Espargaro at Turn 1 and, in the attempt to defend his position, he ended up going wide finishing in front of his teammate. As he was struggling with the rear tyre, Dovizioso couldn’t defend himself from Petrucci’s attack and, after dropping back into twelfth place, he was then overtaken also by Bradl during the last lap, ending the race thirteenth.
During the final lap, Danilo managed to catch up to Crutchlow, passing him just a few corners before the finish line to end the race in tenth place. After the Grand Prix of Teruel, the rider from Terni occupies the eleventh position in the general standings with 71 points, while Dovizioso is fifth 28 points off the leader Joan Mir. Ducati is second in the manufacturers’ classification, while the Ducati Team occupies the third position with 180 points in the teams’ standings.
Danilo Petrucci:
“It was a pretty uphill race, considering that we started way back. Fortunately, this morning we were able to find a good setup that partly solved our problems. I tried to manage the tyres well in the first laps, and towards the end of the race, I was able to do some overtakes. Unfortunately, we still suffer the lack of speed in the straights, but in general, the feeling with the bike has improved. Today our goal was to finish in the top ten, and we succeeded also taking important points for the standings.”
Andrea Dovizioso:
“We knew it was going to be a tough race and unfortunately, my feelings with the bike weren’t good. We didn’t have the speed to recover, and at the end, the soft tyre had a major drop, which prevented me from riding as I would have wanted. I struggled a lot and, especially in the last laps, I was also struggling with arm pump. Now we have to try to move on and start focusing already on the next three races that we have left.”
The Ducati Team riders will be back in action in two weeks, from 6th to 8th November for the Grand Prix of Europe, the first of two consecutive events that will take place this year at the Circuito Ricardo Tormo of Cheste, on the outskirts of Valencia (Spain).