danilo petrucci · Biography

Danilo Carlo Petrucci, born in Terni, Italy, on 24 October 1990, started his first MotoGP grand prix on 8 April 2012 in Qatar, riding the Ioda of the Came IodaRacing Project, and retired after 15 of the 22 laps. A road racer who came through the Italian one-make cups, he won races in MotoGP, the Superbike World Championship and the American MotoAmerica series, and took a stage of the 2022 Dakar Rally.

From minitrial to Superstock

He started in minitrial in 1998 on a Beta and became Italian champion in the discipline the following year. He then moved to minicross, winning regional titles between 2002 and 2004. His road racing debut came in 2006 in the Honda CBR600 Cup, where he was the best rookie, and in 2007 he finished second in the Yamaha R6 Cup, a result that earned him backing from Yamaha Motor Italia. In the European Superstock 600 Championship he was seventh in 2008 and fourth in 2009, with three wins. That same year he was runner-up in the Italian Superstock 1000 series.

In 2010 he raced in the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup on a Pedercini Kawasaki, finishing ninth, and was third in the Italian Superbike Championship. The breakthrough came in 2011 on the Barni Racing Ducati: runner-up in the FIM Superstock 1000 Cup, with four wins and six poles, behind Davide Giugliano, and Italian Stock 1000 champion.

The CRT years

He reached MotoGP in 2012 through the CRT route, lower-budget machines than the factory bikes. With Ioda, using a Suter chassis from the San Marino Grand Prix onwards, he finished 19th that year with 27 points. He was 17th in 2013 and, with ART (Aprilia), 20th in 2014, a season disrupted by a wrist fracture at Jerez.

Pramac and a first podium

In 2015 he joined Pramac Racing on a Ducati. On 30 August 2015, in the rain at Silverstone, he finished second in the British Grand Prix for his first premier-class podium, and ended the year tenth with 113 points. After a 2016 campaign in which he missed the first four races and finished 14th, he scored four podiums in 2017 —third at Mugello, second at Assen and Misano, third at Motegi— and finished eighth. In 2018 he was eighth again, with 144 points and a second place at Le Mans.

A winner with Ducati

Ducati promoted him to its factory team in 2019. On 2 June that year he won the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, his first MotoGP victory, ahead of Marc Márquez and Andrea Dovizioso. He added third places at Le Mans and Barcelona and finished sixth with 176 points, his best final standing. On 11 October 2020 he won a wet French Grand Prix at Le Mans, 1.27 seconds clear of Álex Márquez, and finished that season 12th.

In 2021 he rode for Tech3 KTM Factory Racing, with fifth place as his best result, and finished 21st. His MotoGP career tally stands at two wins and ten podiums. He later returned to the class as a replacement rider: for Suzuki in Thailand in 2022, standing in for Joan Mir, and for the Ducati Lenovo Team in France in 2023, where he finished 11th.

The Dakar and MotoAmerica

In January 2022 he made his Dakar Rally debut on a Tech3 KTM 450 Rally, a few weeks after breaking his left ankle in training. A mechanical failure on the second stage pushed him into the Dakar Experience classification, but on 6 January he won the fifth stage after Toby Price was penalised for speeding. He became the first MotoGP rider to win a Dakar stage.

That same year he contested MotoAmerica Superbike on the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati Panigale V4 R. He won both races of the opening round in Austin in April and took the title fight to the final weekend, finishing runner-up with 356 points, five wins and 16 podiums from 20 races, behind Jake Gagne.

Superbike World Championship

In 2023 he moved to the Superbike World Championship with Barni Spark Racing Team, the squad he had raced for in Superstock in 2011, on a Ducati Panigale V4 R. He took three podiums, two of them at Most, and finished seventh with 228 points. In September 2024 he won all three races at Cremona, his first Superbike World Championship victories; he finished that year fifth with ten podiums and won the independent riders’ trophy despite missing Assen through injury. In 2025 he was fifth again, with seven podiums and another independents’ trophy, although an injury kept him out of the last two rounds. For 2026 he joined the factory ROKiT BMW Motorrad team alongside Miguel Oliveira, taking the seat vacated by Toprak Razgatlioglu when he moved to MotoGP.