Danilo Petrucci achieves personal “target” at Australian World Superbike round

Danilo Petrucci scored a trio of top-five results in Australia during this weekend’s World Superbike season opener, including a podium in the Superpole Race.

The Italian rider came into the year hoping to improve his performance and consistency over last year, and at least at the first round he has achieved that.

“At the end it has been a good Sunday,” Petrucci told WorldSBK.com.

“The target to stand on the podium at least one time, we reached that target. So, I’m happy because, compared to the performance of last year, we improved.

“I must say I would like to be a little bit faster in the afternoon; I was waiting for the second part of the race, but I had a contact with Toprak [Razgatlioglu] and I lost a few seconds, and then I was not able to recover that gap with the other guys of the podium.

“I was always there, but the pace was more or less the same.

“At the end, we have been always in the top-five: fourth, third, and fifth – it’s good, and quite a lot of points. I can say it’s been a positive weekend.”

He added: “Last year I was on the podium in Race 2 but then I finished seventh and 15th in the previous races; this year I finished fourth and third, so more points.

“But it’s a great start of the season. We want to improve the performance of last year during the championship, so for the first weekend the job has been good”

Petrucci said that without the contact with Razgatlioglu he could have fought with Andrea Iannone and Scott Redding for the final position on the podium.

“It would have been a good fight with Andrea [Iannone] and Scott [Redding], but at the end the races in here in Phillip Island are always like this,” he said.

“All week we have shown great potential and great speed, but – except from Nicolo [Bulega] that was doing completely another job – from second to sixth we were all [together] and it was difficult, but at the end we managed to not do any mistakes and I’m happy.”