Fear in Barcelona
The Catalan Grand Prix turned into one of the heaviest and most traumatic weekends in recent MotoGP history: following the bad accident of Alex Marquez, who hit Pedro Acosta’s KTM full straight, falling disastrously (with debris from the bikes that grazed other riders), the race was suspended to allow the medical team to promptly assist the Spaniard from the Gresini team. At the restart, immediately at turn 1, another accident occurred that forced the Race Direction to another interruption of the GP: in this case, Johann Zarco collided with Luca Marini’s Honda, with the latter falling along with Zarco himself and Francesco Bagnaia. By pure bad luck, the Frenchman’s leg got trapped in Pecco’s Ducati, leading to the display of a second red flag. Here too, in a climate of fear about the conditions of Marquez and Zarco, the GP restarted for the second time, with the two riders reassuring everyone about their conditions only after being hospitalized.
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Ezpeleta’s defense
However, at the end of the weekend, there were controversies from some riders regarding both the danger of the Barcelona circuit and the need to restart the race twice despite the evidence of the two bad crashes that could have led to much more serious injuries. On this last point, the MotoGP Sporting Director, Carlos Ezpeleta, believes that the decision taken by the Race Direction was still correct.
In an interview given to motorsport.com, Ezpeleta said he is in any case open to discussing with teams and riders about the danger of the Montmeló track: “First of all, I want to say how lucky we were on Sunday – he said – certainly, Alex and Zarco suffered serious injuries, but the situation did not worsen. The accident between Alex and Pedro is an isolated case, it can always happen. These are things that can happen in a race, but they are not the norm, and there is no reason to worry about safety at that point on the track. All the straights on the calendar of any circuit are similar. It is important that KTM, together with the championship, is investigating everything that happened to Pedro’s bike. Afterwards, the race direction decided to restart the race, which is normal. Then, unfortunately, we had another accident, which can happen again at the start of a race, but once again we were very, very unlucky with the dynamics of that accident and with the consequences for Zarco, his body, his position and everything else. So, I repeat, according to the regulations and everything, I think the race direction and the FIM made all the correct decisions. That said, we need to debrief with the teams and riders to see if there is anything to add that we can improve in the future in any way, because safety is really important to us.”
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Why restart the race?
Ezpeleta, in addition, highlighted further reasons for restarting the race in two cases, as, according to standard practice, both riders were declared conscious by the medical staff and not in critical condition: “Certainly, both riders were not in critical condition, they were conscious, so normally you would restart under these conditions, right? Both accidents were very, very violent and offered a truly shocking image, and it is probably this that started the discussion, but under normal circumstances, the normal thing is to continue with the race“.
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