Danilo Petrucci suffers nightmare second Dakar stage

Danilo Petrucci’s first foray into four-wheeled motorsport this month took a downward turn in the 2025 Dakar Rally’s second stage.

The Italian, who famously rode the 2022 Dakar for KTM and won a stage, is competing for the MM Technology team in a crew headed by Claudio Bellina, the owner of the Italian transport company Italtrans which has long been the title sponsor of the Italtrans Racing Moto2 team.

Petrucci is designated as the team’s mechanic, Bellina the driver, and the third member, Marco Arnoletti, is the navigator for the #608 truck.

The trio ended the first stage of  the rally sixth, and had a trouble-free first day of the 48-hour chrono stage that made up the second test of this year’s Dakar.

However, the second day of Stage 2 saw the #608 truck encounter a variety of issues, from navigational trouble to broken suspension.

“48h chrono has gone finally,” Petrucci wrote in an Instagram post.

“Yesterday was good, no problems and fighting for the sixth place.

“Today I started well, fighting for top-five despite a small puncture on the front right wheel. Knowing we had to go on the dunes I gave the command to Claudio [Bellina] and with the air system I managed to inflate the punctured tyre always at the good pressure.

“Then around 720km there was a difficult navigation point with many cars around looking for the right way and a lot of dust. We lost the way and Claudio unfortunately remained stuck in a sand bank.

“We dug sand for one hour and we have been able to move the truck. We rejoin and I started driving for the last fast part.”

After recovering from the sand bank, things continued to go badly for the Italtrans team.

“Suddenly the suspension broke and cut the air system and we lost that front right wheel,” Petrucci said.

“Not only [that], without air system was impossible to inflate the cushions for change the tyre. Claudio and Marco [Arnoletti] found the way to inflate the cushions and we changed the wheel. Without a suspension we ended the stage at low speed.”

Petrucci was still able to find the positivity in what was clearly a challenging day.

“As always the Dakar is a life lesson,” he said. “You lose the way and you don’t know where you came from and where you have to go. Or you break something and you think everything is lost.

“But as in life, when you are desperate, the only thing you want to do is to go ahead. A problem become an opportunity. The opportunity to always go ahead.”

After the tricky second stage, Petrucci, Arnoletti, and Bellina are down in 12th in the truck class on the overall rankings, and over four hours off the leading truck of Martin Macik, Frantisek Tomasek, and David Svanda, who are also under the MM Technology team.