Aleix Espargaro questions penalties after feisty exchange with Franco Morbidelli
Aleix Espargaro was on the receiving end of some close moves in Sunday’s French🅷 MotoGP race.
An eventful pair of races at Le Mans saw 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Aleix Espargaro serve a double long lap penalty for jumping 🎶the start in the Sprint, salvaging fifth, before a pair of incidents cost him dearly in the grand prix.
The first was a close pass by Enea Bastianini, which forced Espargaro to straight-line the Turn 9 chicane and also allowe💎d Fabio Quartararo to overtake, leaving him in eighth.
But Bastianini had cut the corner and was given a Long Lap pen𒉰alty for failing to bac🍎k off by at least one second (but not for the actual pass on Espargaro).
Bastianini's penalty put Espargaro into seventh, where he remained after Quartararo fell and Bastianini re-passed. However, he lost two more places on the final lap during a pass by Morbidelli, leaving him n⛄inth.
“💎It was a pity about Aleix because he started strong but then found himself in a few battles that caused him to lose rhythm,” said A♓prilia CEO Massimo Rivola.
“First an aggres🦄sive move by Bastianini and then, at the end of the race, Morbidelliꦰ also cost him two positions.
"It’s difficult to find your pace whe🍎n theseꦇ types of episodes occur.”
| — MotoGP on TNT Sports (@motogpontnt)Afterwards, Espargaro questioned why penalties don’𒀰t seem to be applied if a rider is forced to take evasive action to avoid an accident.
“With Enea, I had to pick up the bike, it wa𓃲s very quick. But Franco also, if I didn’t pick up the bike, I would crash,” Espargaro said.
🔯“So the feelinཧg is that they just put a penalty if you crash.
“But what you have to judge and penalise is the♔ action, not the outcome. If I held the line, we both would have had a big [accident].
“So I didn’t really understand, but it’s OK.”
The lap times suggest Espargaro, w🌊ho was holding third place in the early stages, lost around 3 seconds during the incidents.
If 🍌that is subtra💞cted from his +11.3s finishing time, he would have been around sixth place, directly behind team-mate Maverick Vinales.
“I𒅌 expected to be faster, sincerely, but Iꦗ didn’t have grip really,” he said. “I expected with this low temperature to have better traction, but [on Saturday] I felt a lot stronger.”
Peter has been 🐭in the paddock for 20 years and has seen Valentino Rossi come and go. He is at the forefront of the Suzuki exit story and Marc Marquez’s injury issues.
