Octo Pramac Ducati’s Danilo Petrucci had enough early pace to fight for fourth place at the Argentine MotoGP round but an unusually-high rate of fuel use meant he had to switch to a lower power map and that was the end of the Italian’s challenge.

Petrucci had qualified on the second row and was in a scrap with Dani Pedrosa and Johann Zarco but his Desmosedici GP17 was using way too much fuel and to make to the end of the encounter, less power had to be employed so Petrucci was a sitting duck on the straights and ended the day seventh.

He had been one of only a few riders to use the hardest-available option Michelin which gives more life but only if it is not spinning, and that was also causing other problems.

“The beginning of the race was very good and I managed to stay between Valentino and Pedrosa. The only problem was that my fuel consumption was too high and after seven laps I had to switch to the lowest power map. On the straight everybody came past, but I’ve got a really good bike on braking. So at turn five, even if I was on the outside, I managed to brake harder,” said Petrucci, speaking at the track.

“Then after half the race I started to struggle with the rear tyre, especially on the edge. On drive, I had no traction and in the last ten laps I lost about one-second per lap, so I cannot stay in front of Folger.

“Anyway it was a good race and I’m happy because the bike worked all weekend, it’s the first time the bike works for three days, and it means we are working good. Now we have to fix something because still our rear tyre management is not so good and I have to improve in that part and even the bike.”