Danilo Petrucci survived an occasionally bruising battle with Alex Rins d꧑uring the Catalunya MotoGP to notch up a third consecutive po꧅dium and continue his ascent in the overall standings.

Fresh from his maiden MotoGP win in Mugello, though Petrucci didn’t enjoy the strongest weekend in Catalunya in terms of pure pace having qualified down in seventh after strugg🦂ling in practice, he took advantage of the four-way pile-upꦅ ahead to get in the mix for second place.

Engaging in a thrilling, if at times physical, battle with Rins as the Suzuki man tried to counteract the Ducati’s top speed adva♛ntage with some aggressive moves – including one at turn four which resulted in tyre marks being scorch🌊ed onto his leathers – though he’d get the better of the Spaniard eventually, he couldn’t stop Fabio Quartararo passing him late on.

Nonetheless, a third consecutive podium moves Petrucci into fourth overall, only five points shy of his Ducati team-ওmate Andrea Dovizios✃o in second place.

“I'm very happy with this podium. For sure, without the incident during the second lap it would have been harder to seize this result and I'm very sorry for Andrea, who lost a great chanc♈e to shine today. I tried to stay with Márquez but it wasn't possible, and Rins and Quartararo 𒁏were also very fast.

“With Alex, we passed each other many times and once he even hit me on theꦓ right side but I was able to reclaim the position quite quickly. Then, when Fabio passed me, I just tried to stay with him and pull away from the pack.

“We scored the best possible result tod▨ay. After three podiums in a row, we're close to third position in the championship: we need to keep the momentum going at Assen."