Starting his home round from P18 on the grid, Tech3 KTM Factory Racing’s Danilo Petrucci came off the line well and made up three positions already on the first lap. Step by step he worked his way further towards the front, being 12th midway through the 23 laps encounter. With a solid performance he eventually crossed the line in ninth, which is his best result on dry tarmac so far.
Meanwhile, Iker Lecuona found himself in 17th by the end of lap one, but progressed likewise and was already in 13th around half distance. The Spaniard was fighting hard to arrive inside the top 10 and had a great duel with Valentino Rossi on the last laps. He finally finished 0.006 seconds behind the nine times World Champion in P11.
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Danilo Petrucci
Position: 9th
Championship: 14th
Points: 23
“First of all, it was a really difficult race today, but not on the sporting side, but on the human one. It was quite a long race, but we have been fighting a lot. I just found a good rhythm at the end and I could make a good pace and also overtake some other guys. We always start so far back on the grid, so the first laps are really difficult to manage with a lot of riders. Apart from that, I loose quite a lot of time on the straight with my size. The other riders always pass me there, but I think we found something interesting on the bike. The two Factory guys, Miguel and Brad made a big step and we have to do the same.”
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Iker Lecuona
Position: 11th
Championship: 20th
Points: 13
"I’m quite happy about today, because finally I could fight for the top 10. I could improve my feeling with the bike. I was fighting a lot with Danilo, my teammate. On the last laps he was quicker than me and I couldn’t follow. But I had a great fight with Valentino. Finally, I lost out on the top 10 by just 0.006 seconds to him. But eventually, the fight was very nice. I continued to learn, I think I learned a lot overall during this weekend. I just want to say thanks to my team, because they push me a lot and believe in me. I want to dedicate this race to Jason, his family and friends."
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Hervé Poncharal
Team Manager
"Great team result here in Mugello for the Tech3 KTM Factory Racing Team. We worked really hard during the whole weekend. We knew it’s not going to be easy, but we worked mainly on the race setting in order to keep a strong race pace. I think that has helped us a lot to get the result we achieved here today.”
“Both, Danilo and Iker took the hard front option, which for sure was a plus for the last part of the race due to quite high track temperature. They had an ok start, but they put their head down with a really strong pace and they managed to pass quite a few guys. Of course, they also benefited of guys crashing in front, but we were doing really interesting lap times.”
“To finish in the top 10 with Danilo here in Mugello is something we would have signed before the race, for sure and the same thing applies for the 11th position of Iker. That shows also in the Championship, that we are there, we are not too far and we should keep the positive attitude and fighting spirit. This is the way to go. We’ve done six races and we are in the mix and there will be more things to come from KTM, I believe. We need to be stronger from Friday morning in order to definitely have a better grid position.”
“I’m really happy for Danilo to have a top 10 at home, which was very important for him. We are also happy with Iker, because he has been fighting with Danilo the whole race long and on the last lap he had an interesting scrap with Valentino and Valentino just passed him by six thousands on the line, whereas Iker exited ahead of him there. Clearly, there were a lot of things Iker learned today, so we are happy. We’d like to thank KTM for their support, we’d like to congratulate them for their first podium of 2021 and hopefully it’s not going to be the last. We have an important appointment next week in Catalunya."
