VOLUME 56 ISSUE 22 JUNE 4, 2019 P77
Mind you, always tactical,
Marquez hadn't attacked. "If I
had done that and we both went
wide, then maybe Dovi would
win."
Thinking of the championship,
it was better not to risk that.
It was a climactic end to a
breathtaking race. At the midway
point of 23 laps of the famously
scenic circuit outside Florence,
the top 12 were still within three
seconds. It was more like Moto3
the first corner. He ran a little
wide, as Dovi had anticipated,
and the Ducati rider nosed in-
side. But he too was a little wide.
Petrucci—who had led more laps
over the line than any of them—
was loath to repeat "the story of
my life" by dropping back on the
last lap.
"It wasn't a door, but it was a
window, and I jumped into it,"
Petrucci said.
Sandwiched between the
two, Dovi had to pick up and
back off. Having done that, he
thought, everything right to then,
"…that was the bad point of the
race."
Dovi was left to fend off the
surprise Suzuki of Alex Rins for a
close fourth as Petrucci had just
enough to hold off Marquez over
the lap and on the sprint to the
line by only 0.043 of a second.
Dovi was two-tenths behind, and
Rins on his back wheel.
MUGELLO
One of the great grand prix races, Mugello
always throws up a special event. And for
Danilo Petrucci, Sunday in the Tuscan hills
marked a turning point in his life
If you're going
to win your first
MotoGP race,
there's no better
place to do it than
at home. And if
you're Italian, no
better bike to do it
on than a Ducati.
