No 'satisfying' Superbike offers, Petrucci heading off road?

MotoGP race winner Danilo Petrucci is leaning towards a switch to off-road racing, having received no 'satisfying' offers for World Superbike.

Petrucci and team-mate Iker Lecuona have both lost their Tech3 KTM seats in favour of an all-new rookie line-up of Remy Gardner and Raul Fernandez for 2022.

While Lecuona is thought to have a slim chance of a place at the reborn SRT Yamaha team, Petrucci's ten-year MotoGP career is now all but certain to end this season.

A switch to World Superbike seemed a likely possibility for Petrucci, who bucked the trend by reaching MotoGP from a background in production racing rather than Moto2 and went on to win two races for Ducati.

Helping Petrucci's World Superbike cause is that former Pramac team-mate Scott Redding - another rider to struggle due to a bigger than average size in MotoGP and whom Petrucci narrowly outscored on the same spec bike - is now winning races and in contention for the SBK crown.

But speaking at Silverstone on Thursday, the 30-year-old Italian said the lack of any 'satisfying' offers from the Superbike paddock plus a desire to return to a purer form of bike racing means he is leaning towards KTM's offer to take on the Dakar Rally.

"I have no big updates," Petrucci said of his future. "For sure I talk with KTM. We are starting to plan something for the off road in the future. At the moment I have no news apart from this.

"Sincerely it’s the thing I want the most, I really enjoy riding those [off road] bikes.

"At the end I haven’t (got) any offer from Superbike. Nothing that really can be satisfying for me. So then we must continue in this way. At least KTM proposed to me something that I like and I would like to join them.

"I spoke with some riders from rally. It’s the opposite of my world [in MotoGP]. Sometimes you sleep in a tent and wake up at 4am and start the stage at 5am maybe doing 500km to get to a special stage.

"At the end for sure it’s a thing I want. I recognise that in MotoGP you watch and speak about the data more than you ride the bike!

"For me [off road] is what I love the most, riding the bike in very, very different conditions and terrains.

"More riding bikes and less speaking and posting photos!"