Petrucci: "I need to work on my riding style"

Although he came to the Jerez circuit having ridden the bike in a private test at the Italian circuit of Magione in January, Danilo Petrucci got his first real assessment of the Ioda CRT prototype during the three days spent this week at the Andalusian track.

Overall time on the track for the Italian was reduced because of two crashes, the first occurring on Tuesday afternoon and the second on Wednesday morning. But the 21 year old left the test with a clear idea of what is needed to move forward in the Ioda team's preparations for the first MotoGP™ race of 2012.

"I lost almost a whole day because of the crashes," he lamented at the end of the third and final day. "It’s a shame because we showed a lot of potential. The bike was built in just one month, so being here is already a miracle. We have a Superstock motor, steel brake discs, the bike is practically stock and I did a 1’41.6 lap, which is a good time. We are close to the others so I'm happy."

Petrucci began work on Monday, running the new chassis designed by Ioda for the first time. He closed the day with a time of 1’43.3, which he wasn’t able to improve upon due to the crash that shortened his day on Tuesday. He resumed work on Wednesday, completing 62 laps and bettering his time by 1.7 seconds. Most importantly however, he and the team discovered what they need to work on before the next test, scheduled for the 8th and 9th of March at the Motorland Aragon circuit.

"I need to work on my riding style," proclaimed the 2011 runner-up World Superstock 1000 champion. "My style is different from the other riders, they’re used to powerful bikes and the Bridgestone tyres. We’ll have to work on the electronics too. Now we are just waiting for the next test in March, where we’ll have the final version of the bike, the same one that we’ll use in the first Grand Prix in Qatar."