Marini: Petrucci’s size not a disadvantage here

At 1.81m tall and around 80kg, Petrucci often felt he was stressing the tyres more than smaller rivals during his full-time MotoGP career, in addition to suffering in terms of acceleration, top speed and fuel consumption.

Fellow Italian Marini has faced similar issues, albeit to a lesser extent, being 1.84m tall but weighing only 68kg.

Petrucci is making a one-off MotoGP comeback in place of Enea Bastianini, riding for the same factory Ducati team with which he won the wet 2020 Le Mans round.

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“Difficult to say now [how it will go for Petrucci],” said Marini. “But sure he's fit because he's competing in the Superbike and here in Le Mans he was strong in the past. For many years he was fighting for the top positions.

"I think the Ducati is also the best bike for him to come back on. He knows it very well.

“It’s also a good track, in my opinion, for his weight because he can put the temperature in the tyre very soon, and this is not a disadvantage as in all the other circuits of the season apart from Phillip Island.

“Because when you are heavy it’s every time a disadvantage. But maybe here, where the temperature is so cold, also for wet tyres, he can feel well and warm up the tyres. So it's not maybe a problem for him.

“I expect in the mixed conditions to see him quite fast, but the level now is very high, so it will be very interesting [to see how he gets on].”

The VR46 Ducati rider, who took his first MotoGP podium in the wet Argentina race earlier this season, added:

“In my opinion, [being bigger] is never an advantage, but there is less disadvantage here, in this particular case, because the temperature of the tyres is very important.

“I remember when we did the flag-to-flag race [here] in 2021. When we went from slicks and jumped onto the wet tyres. It was for me really difficult to understand how the tyres worked in the first 2-3 laps.

“I lost a lot of time there because I didn't have experience and you need to push a lot at the beginning, because then when there is temperature, the grip is very good. But this track, with this cold weather, is difficult.”

Marini starts this weekend holding sixth in the world championship but, like Jorge Martin, is equal on points with fifth place Maverick Vinales (Aprilia).