Launching the 12th round of the 2021 MotoGP World Championship from P18 on the grid Tech3 KTM Factory Racing’s Iker Lecuona had a rocket start to make up six positions already on the first lap. In the course of the race, he improved his rhythm with each lap and started to pass one rider by another until he eventually was eighth ahead of the last lap and managed to do a last minute pass to finally finish seventh, which is his second best premier class result to date.
In the meantime, Danilo Petrucci also did a strong race at the Silverstone Circuit. The Italian started from P16 and was clocked 14th by the end of the first lap. He followed his teammate, but lost a bit of contact. Yet he managed to remount and like Lecuona passed several riders. In a last lap battle, he succeeded to score a great tenth position and with it, his third top 10 this year.
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Iker Lecuona
Position: 7th
Championship: 19th
Points: 33
“I’m really, really happy! The Qualifying yesterday has been difficult for me, I did some mistakes, but I knew the pace was there. In the Warm Up this morning, I felt really strong, finishing in P5 and I knew if I can recover some places, I can fight in the front group. The start of the race was ok, although I tried to save the tyre a bit, because the conditions have been cold. Lap by lap I managed to improve my lap time and I recovered a lot. On the last lap, I overtook the last rider to finish in P7, which is my second best result in MotoGP and it happened in the dry. I want to say thanks to my team, because this weekend was very good and very strong.”
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Danilo Petrucci
Position: 10th
Championship: 17th
Points: 36
“It was a good top 10 result. We managed to hit the target we set yesterday. Unfortunately, I lost a lot of time in overtaking, mainly on the straights, so it was difficult for me to pass other riders. In the end, it was pretty decent. I think we could have been a little bit better, but thee passes stopped me a bit. Anyway, it’s a good result. Now I really have a very good feeling on the bike, maybe Aragon will be even better with the KTM for us. We will fight for a good result there as well.”
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Hervé Poncharal
Team Manager
“What a race! Finally, we could see our two riders, Iker and Danilo in the fight for top positions. By far, this is the best race of the season. We knew there was something to do, but honestly, this race overcame our expectations. I am speechless, as this year hasn’t been easy, it was always difficult to receive Iker and Danilo back in the garage when the race hasn’t been going the way they wanted and we wanted. But today we had a great fight!”
“We could see both, Iker and Danilo showing an incredible fighting spirit. They did some great passes, aggressive, but clean as you expect from a rider. I am very proud of Iker and Danilo. To have both of them in the top 10 with nearly no crash in front means it was a real top 10 result. Even though KTM didn’t get too much data on that circuit, I think we turned the situation around in a positive way with the three KTM’s in the top 10.”
“Clearly, I’m very happy for Danilo to have shown he still is a fast MotoGP rider and he had some fun today riding and passing guys. I’m really proud of Iker, who at 21 years old is showing that he is growing and becoming a better MotoGP rider every day. I hope this performance will help him to find a MotoGP ride next year. All in all, we are happy. It was a great weekend, we worked really hard. We didn’t have any rain and this is a tough track to understand, but together with the team and the KTM engineers we learned a lot. That has been a very important and crucial GP. So, congrats Iker, congrats Danilo, congrats to the whole crew! As I usually say, it’s just a few days off before we hit the track again.”
