Octo Pramac Racing Ducati MotoGP | Elimination of Danilo Petrucci but enjoying the victory of Andrea Dovizioso

In the narrow aisle between the MotoGP trucks of Octo Pramac Racing I met the two motorcycle stars of the team Danilo Petrucci (Petrux9) and Scott Redding (#45) in the so-called ‘Media Debrief´. Surrounded by international motor sport journalists, the two were interviewed on Saturday afternoon in front of their box no. 21 to the results of the qualifying. Together with the press responsible of team Federico Cappelli we listened to the explanations of the driver, accompanied by the sound of the parallel Moto2 qualifying taking place in the background.

The Octo Pramac Racing Team is since 2013 in favour of Ducati Motor holdings support. The racing motorcycles used by the team come close to the current Desmosedici GP of the factory teams, however, have some of the older specifications.

As the best driver of a customer team, with fifth place on the grid, Danilo Petrucci had created a very good starting position for Sunday’s race. In the English-speaking interview, which followed the Italian, it was then mainly about the winglets on his motorcycle. Danilo addressed the problem that he would have only one set of these special aero panels available during this race weekend. Since these are very important on courses such as the Red Bull Ring, where the drivers have to slow down hardly before the tight curves, a fall in the training phase could have had a fatal effect.

The usage of winglets would continue to be a point of discussion over the rest of the season as it would not benefit on all courses. Especially on those on whom it was more about good handling than on the sharp braking in front of the curves. The qualifying for Scott Redding was less optimal, he had reached the 15th starting position in the race, which meant a start from the fifth row.

After the mixed up weather of the previous days, optimal conditions prevailed on the day of the race at dry 23° Celsius air and 30° asphalt temperature. After the warm ups, the races of the Moto3 and Moto2 class as well as the extensive supporting programme, the race of the MotoGP started at 2 pm. In the first row, the two Ducati factory drivers Andrea `Dovi´ Dovizioso and Jorge Lorenzo followed the reigning world champion Marc Márquez starting for the Respol Honda team. Marc had won the qualifying on his Honda RC213V (report you can find here…).

Immediately after the start the battle between Honda and Ducati began, which continued exceptionally exciting until the last corner of the last lap. After a thrilling race with numerous position fights and overtaking manoeuvres, Márquez who was second behind the Ducati factory rider `Desmo Dovi´, risked everything in the last lap. He rushed into the corner and was thus shortly in front of his opponent. However, through the manoeuvre, he was carried out to the outer kerb, which enabled Dovizioso to pull in again and successfully cross the finish line with an advantage of just two tenths of second and win this race in a highly dramatic way.

Petrux of the Octo Pramac Racing Team was knocked out after a crapped start in the sixth round due to a defect in the oil pump, Scott Redding reached twelfth place in the final ranking. The mood in the box was naturally not overwhelming, but the team was celebrating with the winners. In the box of the successful Team Ducati, which was separated only by a mobile partition wall, has already been celebrated hilariously. Everything was waiting for the champion Andrea to come back into the box from the award ceremony and press conference in order to be duly celebrated by his team and friends. I was able to follow the hustle and bustle out of the Pramac box. It was a very impressive and rousing to be able to experience the Italian joy of victory first-hand. You may be excited to see who will be cheering next year after the Austrian motorcycle Grand Prix in Spielberg.

Text und Photos: Armin Hoyer – arminonbike.com