The reigning world champion and current points leader crashed while trying to overtake chief title rival Aleix Espargaro early on in June’s Dutch GP, and was later handed a long lap penalty to be served this weekend at Silverstone.
He later raged against this decision on social media and said he would stop trying to overtake to avoid punishment, as he took aim at the consistency of the stewards.
This was followed by a statement from Yamaha also questioning the penalty, with a number of riders on Thursday at Silverstone defending Quartararo.
The Yamaha rider says he has not changed his mind on the punishment and believes MotoGP is at risk of becoming “boring” if the stewards cannot find “a balance” in how it judges incidents.
“I don’t want to say something about the previous crash because there was no penalty,” Quartararo said. “Of course, after the crash of Barcelona, that was massive, I understand they want to change a bit the rules that they need to be more aggressive.
“But I think we need to find a balance between irresponsible riding and a racing incident. Of course, I know I crashed and Aleix could have made a better result.
“But I don’t see that as a penalty. But just [as] they need to find the balance between penalty and no penalty, this is the main thing to not make our sport boring.”
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Suzuki’s Joan Mir says he doesn’t understand why Quartararo was punished for what he feels is a clear racing incident, while Jack Miller wasn’t for wiping out the 2020 world champion in Portugal.
“I don’t understand the penalty,” Mir said. “But after the race, I didn’t see the incident and I didn’t want to think so much about the incident, but when I saw what happened I couldn’t believe it, because Fabio was just trying to make an overtake, then, this is racing, he lost the front.
“He didn’t want to crash. What is the difference about what make Miller to myself in Portimao, what is the difference?
“The difference is that Miller crashed, I crashed, Aleix didn’t crash, and they penalise Fabio and they don’t penalise Miller?
“I cry for that action. I say this action because this is the one in racing that I have. Every weekend there is one incident like this or more, probably. So I don’t understand this punishment.”
Fabio Quartararo, Yamaha Factory Racing leads, Takaaki Nakagami, Team LCR Honda and Alex Rins, Team…
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