Unreal. Awesome. Soooooooooooooooooooooo, He gets to open the stage tomorrow? Hmm, a little navigation to be done. Cheers, Dave
I was thinking the same. he ended becoming more of a back marker the last few seasons, and here he is rocking in Dakar on his first go. I would imagine a non-injured MM93 would do well. Maybe Petrux body size, which was a hinderance in MotoGP, actually helps out on dirt.
His body helps in Rally or at least isn’t a penalty. Some big dudes have been super fast in the desert. The best there ever was, Danny Hamel, was a monster.
His fall in MotoGP was the tire change, nothing else, he didn't lose his talent or drive or work ethics, tires changed and made it so he couldn't get that few hundredths that separates the top 10 if not 20 guys, IMHO of course. And he was still his happy self during it all, inspirational for sure.
I would love to have Alberto Vergani's phone bugged right now. I can only imagine the feverish phone tag he's been playing between Ducati and KTM bosses over the last couple of days.
should be fun to watch in MotoA next year. Most of the top MotoGP/RR guys train either flat track or MX. Some get injured in the off season riding MX, so most probably stick more to flat track style. For many riders, they may "age out" of top level road racing, MX/SX but can still run rally and even off road events for quite a few more years. I used to do some work with John Dowd and after he was getting out of MX I always hoped he would do more off road. He did one the FL GNCC races right around that time(2006), he was in amazing shape for his age and just had great bike handling skills. Look at Andrew Short. Would be fun to see Dungey or Villipoto at a GNCC/off road event. Tomorrow will be interesting. Most of the top guys are fast but don't always like starting in front because they don't have tracks to follow and have to rely on their navigation skills. He's starting first tomorrow, so that will show if he's really got his head around the navigation portion (which is a big part of Dakar).
Don't need to be a FBer His interview when he found out he won https://www.facebook.com/watch?v=1068045053767505
Lol. Classic Petrux! https://us.motorsport.com/dakar/news/petrucci-kill-camel-dakar-win-rally/7103080/
for many europeans I would imagine this would be like the "Grand Slam" for the US riders (short track, TT, mile, half mile and road race). Winning a MotoGP race and a Dakar stage would be pretty far up there I would think. Maybe there needs to be a new Grand Slam for the US riders- an AMA MX race, an AMA road race and maybe a GNCC/WORCS race?
A modern 'Grand Slam' would still have to require a win on a mile dirt track, imho. I do admire racers who try their hand at other disciplines of motorbike racing. Petrucci, Short, Beech, Rispoli, Pegram, Sipes, Pastrana are some currently racing, and the list is very long.
Not a great day for Petrux in Stage 6 "Yesterday's winner Danilo Petrucci first to take on treacherous Stage 6 of the 2022 Dakar Rally: 'I had quite a heavy crash and the rider behind me crashed too'" Seems the cars and trucks that ran it yesterday and rain made it terrible for the bikes today https://www.crash.net/motogp/news/995164/1/heavy-crash-petrucci-curtailed-dakar-stage-6
