Petrucci, Lorenzo talk Silverstone near miss

Danilo Petrucci and Jorge Lorenzo were lucky to avoid a big accident in the closing stages of Free Practice 2 at the British MotoGP when the Italian just missed the factory Ducati rider under braking for Brooklands.

At first glance it looked like the Pramac rider had simply out-braked himself, but Petrucci was adamant Lorenzo was to blame as the Spaniard was not on a flying lap.

“Jorge doesn’t care about anyone on track,” Petrucci replied, when asked about the incident. “He was [on an out-lap] from the pits. I think he was scared about the [session] finishing… I was pushing. I was improving my lap time, but then I found him in the middle of the track.”

The Petrucci-Lorenzo scare near the end of FP2. #BritishGP #MotoGP pic.twitter.com/k5nUGAnlCT

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The Italian, who will replace Lorenzo at the factory team next season, added: “[Lorenzo] was not on a normal lap, [he] was going out of the pits. So maybe you have to check who is coming, who is not.

“It’s not because I’m outside of the top ten, but I was scared because if I hit him it would be a disaster. I was in fourth gear. More than 200km/h. I imagined he [would] stay wide but at the last moment he [turned].

“I don’t know why, but when someone complains about me they always call me to Race Direction. For other cases, not so much.”

Lorenzo said he was unaware of the incident until afterwards and felt the rider behind is responsible for passing safely.

The only thing they seemed to agree on was that it would have been a huge accident if they had collided.

“I didn’t realise [it had happened] because I was looking forward and I didn’t hear anything,” Lorenzo began. “But in the motorhome I just saw the images and it was very scary because just for a few centimetres he didn’t bang my rear wheel and I didn’t fly to the moon, to have a big injury. I was lucky there.

“I don’t know why he almost impacted with me. I was just trying to warm-up the tyres as fast as possible and probably for that braking the front was locking a little bit, not a good braking. Not slow, but not very late braking. But probably he was very close to me.

“When you have some rider in front of you, you must be – in my opinion – responsible for the rider in front. You need to leave some space or metres. Just in case he has a mistake, locks the front… But I don’t think he left some metres and almost impacted my wheel.

“Imagine if I ed or was injured? Of course if you ask him, he will say it’s my fault. But you know what I think.”

Petrucci finished twelfth fastest (+1.231s) and must now hope the rain stays away in FP3 to try and make direct access to Qualifying 2. Lorenzo was fifth fastest, 0.397s from team-mate Andrea Dovizioso.