Probably on a production/showroom level bike to keep that cost down and avoid any rules issues if he is on his actual bike.
Having a track "figured out" and getting that last 0.5 second per lap a rider would be capable of if they had more time at the track are not the same thing. Some of that is set up time and some of it is rider experience. Yeah, they will have data from Baz, but do we know how well that translates to Petrucci? I have seen MotoGP riders follow another rider through a section a couple of times and pick up a tenth or two and that wasn't even at a new track. If Gagne and Attack are on, I fully expect Petrucci will not be winning every race that weekend. Matt wasn't that far back, and Gagne left him in the dust at a number of tracks last year.
Well... maybe he can lose that .5 seconds per lap and it'll be an actual race then with the other guys.
This is less folks actually believing that Danilo will have any challenge learning tracks, and more looking for a reason why the hometown heroes might have a chance. Danilo might be somewhat disadvantaged at some tracks compared to guys who’ve done 4000 laps there, but I expect that he’ll still be faster and it won’t make any difference to the final outcome. Random misfortune will have more of an impact than track knowledge disparities.
There were some great camera angles that showed Petrucci’s lines were a bit tighter than most everyone else’s.
…and it was clear from the 12-13 grandstands that he was driving way deeper into the corners as well. He also was getting a sick drive out
I watched his Mugello win in person. If there’s a foreigner that has to come in and slap the local boys around, I’m glad it’s him. Wouldn’t be surprised if he gets called up to WSBK if Rinaldi underperforms.
He was destroying those guys on the brakes. He was so smooth too. I think the only time he got the wheels out of line was the exit of T1 on the first lap of the first race. It didn't even look like he was trying.
It would be cool if the wsbk teamed up with motoamerica superbike instead of MotoGP for a weekend. Stoprack, Johnny and the boys for some real world competition
There one of the tight left turns after a straight where Petrux9 was trail braking hard, and drifting in towards the Apex while Scholtz was setting up wide to carry more corner speed. Announcers even said something about Scholtz setting up for the exit. But as Petrucci hit the apex and finally got on the gas, he had the same or more corner speed anyways and pulled 4-5 bike lengths just by the shorter path and being on the edge of traction the whole time. I’m gonna have to go watch the race again I think.
I just read that Ferraci and Petrucci are from the same town, Termi, Italy... all the pieces of the puzzle make sense now.... how cool.... I didn’t even know Eraldo was an immigrant...
Yes, but I thought he was just one of the Italians, or many other cultures that have lived in their own communities within the US for generations and never spoke English unless they have to... which is never in any of the little Italy areas, or Chinatowns, or Russian, Ukrainian, Mexican, Poland, Korean... maybe even Basque communities in New England?!
I took a Norwegian racing dinosaur buddy in his 70s to one of the race industry shows a few years ago... he’s a neat guy that was in the merchant marines, speaks tens of languages, then worked for the cruise lines and was sponsored by them on Bimotas... he said hold on he sees an old friend... I finish what I was doing and then turned around to see my buddy in an exaggerated conversation with hands flying around and I think I hear Italian... I walk up and there he is hugging a laughing with Eraldo... turns out he tuned the Duc engines in his Bimotas back in the 80s... funny small world racing is...
Let’s go ahead and get this thread where it belongs... looks like he’s having a real hard time learning the super tricky ATL red dirt dance so far Hope they battle and have great respectful throw downs for all to remember.