At the 2020 MotoGP race in Austria, Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi were almost torpedoed by two bikes – Rossi knows how lucky he was
The new MotoGP chicane aims to significantly improve safety at Spielberg. This will defuse the ultra-fast left turn from turn 2 to the approach to turn 3. This is a reaction to the serious accident at the Austrian Grand Prix in 2020.
There was contact between Johann Zarco and Franco Morbidelli on the ninth lap on the approach to turn 3. Both crashed. The bikes flew at high speed through the run-off zone towards turn 3.
There, the first riders were already turning the corner. The two bikes flying around missed the then Yamaha riders Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi only by a miracle. The accident could have ended in a great tragedy.
“It made me think,” Rossi admits in retrospect in an interview with ‘il Giornale.it’. “I was aware of it, but that was proof that in racing it’s not enough to be careful. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, then you are screwed.”
“Yes, it was a difficult moment. But I didn’t say I was quitting because of that. Instead, in those weeks, I decided to do one more season. But it was a really scary accident. I was scared in the saddle. “
“But Zarco’s bike was relatively far away. I heard his bike break apart. On TV, everything seems a bit toned down. The sound and the power with which the bike flung over Vinales. That scared me a lot.”
“But the bike of Morbidelli that clipped me was the real danger for me. I didn’t see that at all. I had the feeling of a shadow, but the speed with which it shot past me was gigantic.”
“Then you say to yourself, ‘Is it worth it?’ I went back to the pits very scared and saw my mechanics. I remember one of them, Alex, very clearly. I said, ‘Come on, I was three or four metres away.'”
“But he said, ‘Did you see the other bike that flew past you?’ And I said, ‘What other bike?'”, Rossi looks back. He knows he was very lucky: “Yes, I played the joker then. “