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Danilo Petrucci continues to lose ground in MotoAmerica. Now, after his third place at Breinard, his gap from Jake Gagne rose to 12 points. A distance that isn’t unbridgeable but is difficult to recover because Danilo is always competing on unknown and difficult tracks. Gagne himself admitted it.
"Like both these guys said, it's a tricky place. You can knock it back a couple of percentage points and try to use the slightest lean angle, and things like that, but it can bite you in weird places. I had this experience last year and in the tests," Jake confirmed. "I’ve had some weird falls here in the past, so I wanted to make sure I didn't do anything stupid. I had good start. The first two laps were a little tricky. I didn’t have any big moments, but I felt that the rear wasn’t hooking like it had in practice, so I had to ride the tire a little differently. I’m just lucky I had a couple of clean laps and, then, when I had a little bit of a gap, I could just ride and try not to make mistakes. You can't just knock it back and rider around. You’ve really got to stay focused on this track. Some weird stuff could happen. Again, thanks to the Yamaha guys. They’re working hard. I think all of us want to try to figure out and understand how to improve the feel of the tires and get a little more consistency. It's an interesting place. It's tough to get that consistency and really know what the tires are going to do until it's too late."
In fact, Petrucci had the same feelings.
Petrucci: "I hit a neutral while trying to pull away from Petersen"
"I made a mistake in the end. The problem was that, from the beginning, from the first lap, I thought I had a cold rear tire. It was very, very difficult to ride. I had the impression that I had something wrong with the rear suspension or the traction control, I don't know," Petrux said. "After the race, we checked the pressure and the rear tire was really, really low. But it went well in the end. I was pushing a lot to get away from Cameron Petersen, but I made a mistake, and I hit a neutral at the second-to-last corner ,and I ended up in the grass. It was definitely one of the most difficult days. I had a big fall this morning, a highside like the all-time biggest. It wasn’t easy to rebuild the bike and move on. I'm very angry about my mistake, but I need to figure out what happened on the bike. I'm definitely happy that tomorrow is another day."
Petersen: "I raised my hand, I thought there was going on"
Petersen, second at the finish line, then confirmed the feelings both had.
"Kind of the same deal. There was a point when I actually raised my hand because I thought there was something going on with the bike. I couldn't get into the corners. The thing was sliding everywhere. It's actually been happening all weekend. It’s every time we put on a new tire. In the first two or three laps, it feels like an old tire. So, I think I was just over-riding, like I have been all year, just to try and keep up with Jake. It was an interesting race. I think we were all battling for the same thing. It’s a weird asphalt and, with a brand new tire, it feels like it has thirty laps on it. "
