Starting the third race of the 2021 MotoGP World Championship season from P19 on the grid, Tech3 KTM Factory Racing’s newcomer Danilo Petrucci delivered a steady pace at the roller coaster circuit in Portugal. As the only rider in the field, he opted for the hard front and rear tyre and was rewarded with a 13th position by the end of the race, which meant he secured his first orange points in the World Championship.
At the same time, Iker Lecuona came off the line well from P20. He made up several positions in the course of the 25 laps race, which was his first MotoGP competition at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve, after he had to miss out the Portuguese Grand Prix last year. The Spanish youngster eventually saw the chequered flag in 15th position, bringing home his first point of the season as well.
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Danilo Petrucci
Position: 13th
Championship: 21st
Points: 3
“To be honest, the race was not too interesting for me. I was fighting and made some passes, but at the end, I couldn’t pass Marini. We are still not in our best form, we need to improve our setup. I am gaining a lot of experience though. At least, we got some points and this is important for the mood. I would like to thank all my team, because they are doing a great job. For me it’s still a new experience, but I know we have the potential to be closer to the front, but for this we have to work a lot. We have some ideas for Jerez and I’m looking forward to race there.”
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Iker Lecuona
Position: 15th
Championship: 22nd
Points: 1
“There’s not too much to say about this race. I struggled all the weekend, but tried my best. Finally, we got one point, but still this doesn’t really help as we basically finished last. I’m trying to reset my mind now, go home, relax and try to change my approach for the next round in Jerez de la Frontera.”
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Hervé Poncharal
Team Manager
“You always have to find the bright side of the whole weekend and the positive side is, we got our two guys, Danilo and Iker in the points, which are the first points of the season. I know, we are quite far down, but still, there is a beginning. If we want to be completely objective, we are far. Qualifying was difficult, the start of the race was difficult as well.”
“Danilo had, I think a good tyre choice with the hard front and rear. He was the only one and we were expecting him to be maybe in a better shape the last 10 laps than the others. We could see him catching the guys in front of him, but not enough. He ended up 0.176 behind Marini. I’d still like to thank him for pushing as much as he can at the moment. It is still a learning process. We need to understand more and more how we can help him to be feeling more comfortable and to be giving him better sensations to push more. As I said, the first points, which is already an important step.”
“Iker, I would say, the only positive is that we got one point, but honestly, I don’t know what to say at the moment. I’m lost for words and I think he is lost for everything. When I remember Iker at the very beginning last year, he was full of energy, sometimes doing mistakes, but pushing. This year for some reason there is nothing that works, there is no sparkle. So, yes, we got a point, but very, very far down.”
“We need to talk, we need to debrief. We saw KTM is competitive. Brad Binder ended up fifth, I think 1.8 seconds to P2, which is another strong performance after Qatar. So clearly, the bike is there. We don’t want to talk too much about technical things. We need to give our riders a better feeling, we need to make them a bit hungrier and let’s hope that will happen in Jerez, which is the fourth round of the Championship. It is already the fourth round and everybody needs to wake up and push.”
