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Petrucci: "Driving a truck in the Dakar? I haven't been so scared for such a long time."

"Bellina was a gentleman who left me in charge of an 1100 hp truck and costing I don't know how many millions. He is a person from another time, from whom you can only learn. The podium? I thought about it, but it was not a possibility."

Dakar: Petrucci:

The Dakar adventure of the Italtrans team crew of Danilo Petrucci, Claudio Bellina and Marco Arnoletti ended in the sixth stage. While driving the Iveco Powerstar #608, Bellina suffered a major drop in blood pressure that convinced the team to call for help and abandon the competition early as a precautionary measure.

"We got scared because Claudio didn't feel well a half hour after I gave him the wheel. But honestly he had been tired for a few days and didn't feel right. So as a precaution we decided to stop. We called for help, they took him to the hospital, he did all the checks and fortunately he's fine," Petrucci told us, happy that all the tests the experienced driver from Bergamo underwent came back negative.

"Fortunately, it's nothing serious, but it was not the case to continue. Also because in any case, this year's race was particularly hard for everyone," Petrux continued, emphasizing the high level of difficulty reached by this year's edition of the famous desert marathon: "I realized that compared to the Dakar that I did three years ago on a motorcycle, the situation is considerably worse. In the sense that it is a deliberately harder and harder race, where in my opinion it now makes no sense for amateurs to participate, because in the desert it is dangerous. You have to be well trained and very prepared. The main thing, however, is that Claudio is well and has no particular problems. I am happy about that and I thank the medical team for taking care of the situation right away."

Despite the early conclusion, the rider from Terni can only be satisfied with the wealth of experience and emotions accumulated in this four-wheeled Dakar, which seemed likely to give a great result to the Italtrans team until a few days ago.

"It was a very strong experience and from people like Claudio Bellina you can only learn. Driving the truck but first of all as a person, because he is truly a man from another era and I really enjoyed sharing two weeks, day and night, with him," he said, "We had several laughs, we told each other our lives and I learned a lot. I hope to hang out with him more and more and learn more and more from him, because he is really cool!"

Even before the illness suffered by Bellina, what had compromised the team's race was the unfortunate accident that occurred in the fifth stage. A rollover that had dropped them more than 50 hours behind the leader in the standings, ending any hopes of aiming for the final podium.

"After the first three days, when we were in fifth position after the 48-hour stage, I said to myself, 'You'll see that if we make it to the end it'll be a miracle to get on the podium.' It 's just that the top five do it professionally, while I've accumulated 30 km of experience with a truck and I haven't driven it in the dunes yet," Danilo remarked. "Claudio and I shared the steering wheel, and he was a gentleman, because I don't know how many millions of euros of truck he left me in his hands. As I said, he's a person from another time, but that wouldn't have really been a possibility. I hope it's my first real experience on four wheels, though, and not the only one."

Petrucci is already dreaming of returning to the desert again, but he will first have to refocus on his World Superbike efforts.

"The Dakar is always fascinating, it is always a strong experience, which I hope to do again, and it was a great honor to do it with a family like Italtrans. It was really nice to share so many days with them and to be able to get to know the whole family. I'm happy and, looking on the bright side, I gained a lot of experience, I drove a scary 1,100-horsepower vehicle and it's been a long time since I felt so much fear in driving a motor vehicle, so it was a very strong experience ," he concluded, "But now there is to think about my real job and then go back to training. The problem becomes an opportunity, because at least I have an extra week to train for the tests. Honestly, I can't wait to get back home a bit and get on the bike in Jerez in ten days."

 

Translated by Julian Thomas

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