SBK, Petrucci: "Wanting to go faster and faster kept me from enjoying the moment"

If there is one rider who is always able to throw his heart over the obstacle it's Danilo Petrucci. Currently in action in SBK with the Barni team, the Terni-born rider has, throughout his career, had to face several difficulties and major injuries that, instead of holding him back, have become a spur to do more or at least something different.

About his strong-willed and combative attitude, the 34-year-old spoke to the You Tube podcast La Merenda, in which he also revealed an unpublished backstory about his participation in the world's most dangerous rally raid in 2022.

"I went to do the Dakar like when elephants before they die break away from the herd or like those who undertake the Camino de Santiago. I knew nothing about the race and I didn't know anyone. A month earlier I had broken my ankle and everyone was worried about me. They were advising me to go slow to avoid crashing, as then happened - is his story - Before I retired, however, I won a stage. I found out that I came first on the route that led me to the bivouac, which is 160 km of highway. I was completely alone and there, I realized I had done something historic. At that moment I remembered when as a child, on my way out of school, I used to force my mom to buy me all the videotapes about motorcycles at the newsstand. I would go home and watch them, dreaming of winning, and that day had finally arrived. I celebrated solo and it was like someone who gets to the top of Mount Everest and has no one near him to take a picture. It was still a great satisfaction and I told myself that I could die happy."

It almost sounds like a paradox, but motor racing can also rhyme with the word "slow." "Slowing down raises consciousness, in general. Today society pushes you to do and want more and more. Personally, by dint of thinking about how to go stronger, for example, it prevented me from enjoying that phase when I was one of the best riders in the world. When I was fourth overall in MotoGP I was thinking about how to become third. Now I understand the value by looking at others, but at that time I didn't."