A high-tension Sunday
Massimo Rivola, CEO of Aprilia, spoke at the end of the Catalonia GP to the microphones of Sky Sport MotoGP. The Italian executive, at the end of a chaotic and dramatic race that saw two terrible major crashes that had serious consequences for Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco, made a general reflection on this day and in general on the evaluation – regulatory and not only – of certain episodes.
Rivola’s words to Sky
“Today everything takes a back seat to Alex Marquez’s accident – Rivola began to the microphones of Sky – and honestly I hadn’t realized how frightening Johann Zarco’s was as well. I hope both can return as soon as possible. A day like today makes us understand once again what these guys do on the track and what we take for granted: they are phenoms who risk their lives on every corner and we forget that. We need to give more credit to what these guys do and from a sporting regulation point of view we should tighten things up. Not to be against the show, but these are lions in a cage and when you let them loose they go full throttle. After Alex’s accident and the red flag I hoped that at the restart the riders would be calmer, but instead…My invitation is for the race direction to be stricter, for the good of the riders“.
Rivola then touched on another topic: the fact that Pedro Acosta, who unintentionally with his technical problem caused the accident that led to the first red flag, was allowed to restart. From a regulatory point of view both he and Fabio Di Giannantonio reached the pits with their own bikes at the time of the race interruption and therefore were authorized to return to the grid for the second start. “I’m not against Acosta – Rivola wanted to clarify – I’m speaking in general: that a rider who has a technical problem causing an accident can restart and compete in the race is something that in my opinion we need to review. Then obviously I’m sorry for what happened to him with Ogura on the last lap, but he is the rider who caused the red flag because his bike broke down. Although the red flag refers to the previous lap, however sportingly I think we should review some things. There are things to write better in the regulations, I put this topic on the table“.
Finally Rivola also explained the reasoning about the greater severity that in his opinion the Race Direction should have in penalizing riders: “The lack of penalty for Raul Fernandez? That is our internal problem, it’s bad that the Aprilias take each other out. But I’m not criticizing the race direction, because this approach is what we ourselves have always wanted, also for the show. But certain accidents happen because of the eagerness to get ahead immediately. I repeat: these riders are lions in a cage, if you let them too free these things happen“.
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