Tech 3 scandal – Petrux found out about his resignation through the media
It is a bitter irony when you consider how often Pit Beirer and Hervé Poncharal play the lovable people in front of the microphone and often paint the picture of a harmonious KTM family, and now have to witness the circumstances of Petrux’s dismissal. As a fan and reporter, it hurts the soul when a long-serving and highly sympathetic rider like Danilo Petrucci is now treated like dirt by KTM after leaving Ducati. Against this background, all the sayings of the KTM and Tech 3 managers seem like hypocrisy when they publicly regret that the Italian learned about the commitment of Raul Fernandez from the newspaper in his place.
Not an isolated case
The oranges have already made a lot of mistakes since they started taking part in road racing. In MotoGP, Johan Zarco’s voluntary departure was accompanied by a real mud fight on the part of KTM. Almost at the same time, the exit from Moto2 with its own chassis came, and many other dark chapters followed. Among other things, the “fratricidal war” between Pol Espargaró and Miguel Oliveira, who abused each other on social media. But with the scandalous incident involving Petrux, the icing on the cake was put on a series of embarrassments and mishaps. Another embarrassment happened before the Moto3 GP in Styria, when Deniz Öncü’s team was still busy changing tires at the 3-minute table. At the home race of the Oranges, of all things, Tech 3 KTM made such a rookie mistake and the pole sitter therefore had to start from the pit lane, which meant that he no longer had a chance of a top position. In addition, the switch to slicks turned out to be a wrong decision, as the course of the race should show.
The highly dangerous Red Bull Ring and Turn 3 – nothing but empty promises
Just because Formula 1 protested against it, there was supposedly no improvement in the most dangerous part of the MotoGP calendar. We are talking about the route in Austria, which has twice been recognized by the IRTA as the best venue, known as the Red Bull Ring or Spielberg. The latter is the community on whose soil the racetrack with the hair-raising dangerous Turn 3 lies. Because the GP of Finland at the KymiRing was cancelled for very dubious reasons, there will be another double race here after 2020. As Morbido’s replacement Cal Crutchlow clearly stated at the press conference, clear promises had been made to improve the situation after the highly dangerous incidents in the previous year. However, next to nothing happened. One can also confidently ask why such a course was even accepted by the FIM. It is simply a scandal that, after so many empty promises, no measures to defuse have been taken since then.
Pointless punishments for track limits – but not for real offences
In Moto3 there were 8, twice as many in the middle class, and in MotoGP 13 so-called track limit warnings. A completely absurd and newly introduced idea to initially warn the driver when driving over green areas of the route (what a colour for a forbidden zone) and punish them in the event of repetition. Absolutely nonsensical and, in the opinion of most active and former drivers, not suitable for increasing safety. In addition, the FIM commissioners usually interpreted it very arbitrarily and often enough very inconsistently, not to say one-sided and unfair. But there are drivers like Marc Marquez, who are allowed to jostle their opponents off the track and do so several times and still get away with impunity. The incident in the MotoGP race for the Styrian Grand Prix offered another chapter, much to the chagrin and annoyance of Aleix Espargaró, one of the fairest people in the whole paddock.
The punishment of Francesco Bagnaia as an example of questionable decisions
In the Moto2 race, there was a long lap penalty for Ai Ogura, which led to a strange incident. The Japanese made his detour in turn 1 in the marked area, but promptly got into the green marked zone again shortly before the exit. After crossing the finish line, it got grotesque again. He received a 3-second penalty for this from the FIM stewards. But he didn’t lose a single place because it wasn’t until a little over three seconds behind him that the next driver crossed the finish line. Then there was the next bad joke in MotoGP regarding this questionable regulation. There were 13 warnings for disregarding the “track shits”, as they are commonly called in the paddock. Then four punishments per penalty, but later a sinner, for whom one sees only a warning, but no pronounced punishment. The following is the official excerpt from the result sheet with all the events, where you see no penalty for Pecco, but then a penalty for not taking his punishment.
Unless otherwise stated, this applies to all images (© MotoGP).
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