Danilo Petrucci finished Friday practice at the WorldSBK Italian Round second overall, but his day was overshadowed by an incident with Remy G🍸ardner in FP2.

The cause of the incident was not made clear by TV replays, which only s💃howed Petrucci making a one-handed gesture while looking back at Gardner between turns one and two as he slowed on the line. Gardner, in avoidance, took to the gravel, and offered Petrucci a one-handed gesture in return.

“I was pushing,” Petrucci’s explanation of🎃 the incident began, speaking to WorldSBK.com.

“It was my second lap pushing, and in the first lap I found another rider stopping between the penultimate and the last corner. So I have to ♋abort m🦂y fast lap, I was two-tenths faster.

“The other lap, I was coming, approaching again, I was 💯two-tenths faster than my best lap; blue flags were waving for Remy [Gardner], but he decided to cross the track between turns 11 and 12 when I was coming and Iost [out] for looking what he was doing — I lost all my gap.

“Another lap, it was the second🥂 lap ruined by🍃 another rider and I was really upset."

Asked if he had spoken to Gardne🌜r, Petrucci said only: “I have my idea, he [Gardner] has his own idea. For sure, I saw him looking at me and I saw the blue flags, so I don’t understand why he decided to cross the track.”

There were also concerns about track conditions for Petrucci, aft🙈er overnight rain left the track damp in FP1.

“After a lot of rain, t♔he track was not really in a perfect condition, so I was missing a lot ꦬof grip at the front and rear, and in the middle of the corner my bike slides so much,” he said.

“So, I have really to care about managing the throttle, trying to pick up the bike as quickly as possi🌠ble without losing any speed or without sliding.

“It’s not easy, especially because on this track you have one line and when yo🐻u try to do something more y✃ou are immediately out of the line and you lose a lot.”

Tꦗhe positive for Petrucci, though, was his pace, which put him among the contenders for the podium.

“I’m really happy about today,” Petrucci said. “It’s quite a difficult track, because, f♊or me, today has been the first time with the Superbike in this track. But I found myself in a good shape, the base setup of the bike is not really bad.

“So, I started immediately to have a good feeling. We did a comparison between the two race tyres, the [standard] SCX tyre and the other [development] one. I prefer sti💫ll the [standard] one, but at the end it🍷’s good.

“It will be really tough, I think. Alex Lowes is▨ a little bit faster than us, but we try to stay there and try to win this race.”