Takaaki Nakagami clears Francesco Bagnaia and Alex Rins before the first corner, there is no penalty – For those who fell through no fault of their own an absurdity
For Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), Takaaki Nakagami (LCR-Honda) and Alex Rins (Suzuki) the Grand Prix of Catalonia in Barcelona was over after only a few metres. The three MotoGP riders collided shortly after the start on the approach to the first corner and were unable to continue the race.
The incident was caused by Nakagami, who slid off the front wheel on the brakes, taking Bagnaia in front of him and Rins behind. Race control announced an investigation but took no further action. There was no penalty.
For Rins, who had already clashed with Nakagami a week ago at Mugello, this is completely incomprehensible. “First of all, I hope Taka is okay. I met him at the hospital and he looked pretty banged up. But he can’t continue like this,” the Suzuki teammate takes his colleague to task.
“Nobody wants a competitor to get injured. But he was over the limit in this situation,” the Spaniard judges and denounces the decision of the race director. “This is unacceptable. What the race direction and the stewards decide makes no sense at all. I don’t understand why there was no action. “
Rins sees Nakagami as a repeat offender
“Already in Mugello I said to Freddie (Spencer, Chairman of the Stewards Panel) that something like this should be punished as hard as with Öncü last year. It is crazy. Today everyone saw that the stewards are not at the level of MotoGP.”
To explain, Moto3 rider Deniz Öncü had been banned for two races in 2021 after causing a devastating chain reaction at the Grand Prix of the Americas in Austin. Three riders crashed through no fault of their own at the time.
The fact that MotoGP isn’t being cracked down on in the same way annoys Rins. “We are racing at 350 km/h. This is not a game,” he says. “First of all, Taka crossed the track (at the start) a bit aggressively. He could have easily hit other riders. Secondly, he braked so late that his front wheel had to flip away. “
FIRST TURN CHAOS!
Bagnaia, Rins and Nakagami crash OUT! CatalanGP pic.twitter.com/YtWZ3JaJwa
– MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) June 5, 2022
At Friday’s safety committee, Rins had already raised the issue – with race director Mike Webb present. “As far as the incident at Mugello was concerned, the riders were divided on who was at fault,” the Suzuki rider revealed.
“But when it came to the stewards, everyone was unanimous. They are not doing their job well, that’s obvious. I’m going to put pressure there for sure.” He would love to change all three race stewards: “There needs to be younger people who have ridden in the new era and maybe have already stepped down. “
Bagnaia now finally without a chance in the World Championship?
Especially bitter for Rins: Not only was the race over for him after the crash. He was also injured: “My left wrist seems to be broken. We still have to get it checked, but it looks bad because I can hardly move it.”
“Now I’m injured and because another rider has cleared me, my chance of winning the title is gone for good. The same goes for Pecco. He had a chance to win the championship, but I don’t think he can fight for it this year. “
While Bagnaia had made up ground in the overall standings with his victory at Mugello, the zero that was not his fault now threw him back again. The Ducati rider is a whopping 66 points behind World Championship leader Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) after nine races.
“I’m not angry, just disappointed,” said Bagnaia after his early exit in Barcelona and echoed the words of fellow sufferer Rins: “First of all, I’m happy that Taka is okay to some extent, because the crash was violent. But I don’t agree with the race organizers who don’t do anything.”
“He (Nakagami) keeps doing this kind of thing. You should expect more from a professional rider like him than to crash at the first braking point on the first lap, after starting from twelfth place and wanting to overtake everyone right away in the first corner. I don’t know what he was thinking. “
Drivers agree: can’t be a normal racing accident
Bagnaia wants to talk to Nakagami when the LCR rider is back, but has similarly clear words for his riding style as Rins: “In Mugello and also here it was the same rider who caused crashes and that is not acceptable.”
After all, it is also about the issue of safety. Here Bagnaia sees the race commissaires as having a duty. “From my point of view, they made a mistake today. Especially since there was already an incident in Mugello,” the Ducati rider emphasised. “The fact that nothing further was done this time is incomprehensible to me. “
I am happy that @takanakagami30 and @Rins42 are doing well, that is the most important thing. We are professional riders and we can’t make mistakes like that with our experience. Unfortunately racing is also this, but safety comes first and something has to change. pic.twitter.com/XRziK9GyXi
– Pecco Bagnaia (@PeccoBagnaia) June 5, 2022
“He came shooting from so far behind. I don’t even want to look at Taka’s data. The TV pictures alone are enough to know that he missed the braking point. So it’s hard to understand why it was decided that way,” said Bagnaia.
Suzuki team manager Livio Suppo also thinks the collision was a normal racing accident. He reveals: “We have sent a protest to the stewards. They checked the incident, for them it was a racing accident. For me it is not acceptable.”
“I think both Alex and Pecco deserve to know how big a mistake he (Nakagami) made. It was clearly a mistake. You can easily check from the data how many metres after the usual braking point he braked. On top of that, he went from left to right.”
“If the stewards think that something like that is a normal accident, we have to think about it. For us it is not acceptable. A mistake can happen, but this one was really big,” Suppo holds. The last word does not seem to have been spoken yet.
Nakagami himself could not comment on the incident immediately after the race, as he was in hospital for tests. LCR-Honda announced via Twitter that no serious head injuries had been detected. Nakagami said he felt pain in his right shoulder, but that his collarbone was fine.