Sepang Clash: Rossi, Marquez & Race Direction Comment
- Oct 25, 2015
- 2 min read
Valentino Rossi:
“You know unfortunately I lose a lot of time with Marc and in turn fourteen I tried to go wide to get a better line to make him slow because he just riders to cause me some problems. Unfortunately he came to me and I think he crashed in that moment. It's a shame because I think that in a normal race we can stay and fight with Jorge and we lost some points. In Valencia will be more difficult.
“It is very clear from the image, especially from the helicopter, that I don't want to make him crash. I just want to make him lose time and go out of the line and slow down because also this time, a lot worse than in Australia, he make his dirty game. When I go wide, wide, wide, I slow down, we almost stop and I look at him to say, “F**k, what the f**k are you doing?
“After we touch and he touched me with his handlebars on the right on my leg, and I lose the foot from the foot peg, but if you look at the image form the helicopter it is clear that when I lose the foot from the footrest Marquez has already crashed. So I don't want to kick him.”
Marc Marquez:
“You know I don't want to be inside more on the championship and on the season. For me it;s a race decision just I explain what I feel. I explained what I feel. I know that I finish on the gravel, I crash and I have zero points and Valentino will start last in Valencia. But you know, what I feel is that this race incident is not a race incident.
“I overtake him but always in a good place, but I don't know how the inside of the helmet you think to push out with the leg another rider so, yeah, I never see that. I am very young but for that reason I am very disappointed.
Race Direction:
“The decision is that Race Direction has imposed three penalty points on Valentino Rossi for irresponsible riding, that is, deliberately causing contact. Deliberately running wide in a corner in order to try and force another rider off line. The result was a crash and so it's irresponsible riding causing a crash and for that we imposed three penalty points on Rossi.
“It looked like we were going to have a great race, but unfortunately it ended in an incident that's controversial.
“Marc explained that he was riding his normal race waiting for the tyres to feel good and going fast when he could and slowing down when he had to. Valentino was of the opinion that Marc was deliberately slowing the pace of the race down and doing so unfairly. We listened to both riders; our opinion was that there was some fault on both sides, but as far as the rulebook goes Marquez did not make any contact, did not break any rules as such, but we feel that his behaviour was causing problems to Rossi who reacted. Unfortunately he reacted in a way that is against the rules.”
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