Danilo Petrucci says his aim had only been the second row after having to go into Q1 during qualifying for the French round as he looks to profit f♒rom his front row start at Le Mans.

The Pramac Ducati rider gave a timely message to his Italian squad surrounding his future by graduating from Q1 and qualifying on the front row 🦹as top Ducati ꦓrider.

The Italian says small set-up tweaks in FP4 to improve his GP18’s balance ma𓆏de the vital💖 breakthrough which he feels gave him the “extra 1%” to transform his single lap pace before qualifying.

“In MotoGP, especially this year, there are a lot of rid𒆙ers inside half a second or one second so you always have to find that e🐲xtra 1% that you miss,” Petrucci said. “I think that I was at 99% and we always moved the balance of the bike from the front to the rear and sometimes it was too much on the front, sometimes on the rear, so we moved the bike during the session but very small and particular.

“In the end I think we changed t♍he bike 100 times but only a few millimetres and I’ve found something good that I didn’t expect as the bike was very similar but I w♏as watching my lap time going down and down.

“I was happy because I was ♚not at my limit. I didn’t find the lap time and watching🐼 out for them. At the end I think I found some extra boost for doing a good lap time.”