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It has been an incredible season, the one in MotoAmerica. While in 2021, the championship was dominated by Jake Gagne with 17 victories and one podium in 20 races, this year it has come down to the final showdown with Danilo Petrucci, on his debut in the American series.
Danilo got off to a great start, winning in Austin, a track he knew well, but then he had to adapt to different circuits and conditions that he was not used to. Not to mention the lack of technical benchmarks for his Ducati Panigale V4 of the HSBK Warhorse team, compared to the Yamaha of Jake who returned to racing in the 2019 MotoAmerica Superbike championship on a BMW of the Scheibe Racing team with which he finished the season in eighth final position, obtaining a fourth place as the best result in the race. In 2020 he then moved to the Attack Performance team, running a Yamaha, with which he finished in second position, obtaining eleven podiums in twenty races held overall.
In any case, Gagne is no newbie: in 2017 he made his World Superbike debut by competing in some races on the Honda CBR1000RR of the Red Bull Honda team. First as a replacement for Nicky Hayden, later in place of Stefan Bradl, who was injured during the season. He scored fourteen points which allowed him to finish in twenty-fourth place in the rider standings. In 2018 he started as a Red Bull Honda rider, with teammate Leon Camier and ended the season in seventeenth place in the riders standings with sixty-four points.
A veteran, therefore, like Petrucci, a duo to whom MotoAmerica dedicated a video with a few questions.
What is your mindset heading to the end of the year, and has it changed at all since the start of the season?
JG “I just try to do my job and go out and try to win races. There is a little pressure on but it doesn't change the mindset. I just try and go as fast as I can, run as clean a race as I can"
DP "I was trying not to think about the championship all along the year, I was always leading the championship apart from two or three races, but it has never been a real fight with Jake. For sure I would like to win the championship, but I don't know if it will be possible, if Jake doesn't make many mistakes. It’s not really good to say that I have nothing to lose because I can lose a race ".
How do you deal with pressure and stay so calm and collected?
JG "I think it comes with experience. I don't stress about much, I try to do the best that I can. Good day or bad day. That’s the easy part: I’ve got a good group of guys, ... I worry about what I can, try to go faster and whatever happens, happens. "
Danilo is the challenger, it is natural to ask him what his strategy is to beat Gagne.
DP "My strategy is to destroy his strategy, but at the first corner he always did the holeshot, I need to start in front of him and stay in front of him at least the first two laps, but it never happened in eight rounds. Sincerely I hope for one day of rain, I’m good on the rain".
