Petrucci 'so sad' as Mir mistake takes him out of final home race

After qualifying a season-best ninth, Danilo Petrucci hoped to celebrate both his 30th birthday and final home MotoGP race in style at Misano on Sunday.

Instead, the Italian was taken out on lap 3 when world champion Joan Mir (who had just been informed of a jump-start penalty) lost control of his Suzuki during an overtake at Turn 2.

Petrucci's disconsolate body language was clear, but he still sportingly embraced Mir at the scene of the accident (pictured).

“I’m so sad!" said Petrucci, who had finished the first lap in twelfth but was 16th a lap later. "We knew it would be a difficult race, but I would have loved to greet my fans for one last time from the circuit.Unfortunately, another rider was too optimistic going in to corner two and we crashed.

"I don’t have any words left, but I would like to thank all the team for their great efforts and I promise, we will try again in Portimao."

Asked if he was surprised Petrucci had hugged him, Mir said: "You know, when I was overtaking Danilo, it was not a crazy manoeuvre at all, it was just a left hander, and with this cold temperature, you have to be a bit careful in the first laps on the left side.

"When I changed direction, I just lost the front. But it's the type of manoeuvre where I was not going to hit him [until losing the front]. So that's why I think Danilo was not angry.

"I apologised to him, because this is the type of thing I don't want to do. I'm happy that Danilo is fine. Of course I didn't do it on purpose."

Petrucci's Tech3 KTM boss Herve Poncharal said: “Everything was going to plan until Mir touched Danilo, which ended up with both of them crashing early in the race. It was a shame for Danilo, who had I think a good pace and could have had a great result for his birthday.”

Team-mate Iker Lecuona later crashed out of 14th place.