The FIM’s scandalous decision causes complete incomprehension
Since the introduction of the new track limits, the highest motor sports authority has been covered in anything but glory. On the contrary, the decisions of the stewards repeatedly caused pilots, teams and experts to shake their heads violently and misunderstand them. Commentators and fans were also completely overwhelmed and no longer understood the world. But now the doubters have been taught better about a saying that has been making the rounds in the paddock since 2015. This slogan reads, “Marc Marquez can shoot a rider from his bike himself with a pistol and the race management will not punish him for it”. The FIM race management at the Grand Prix of England impressively demonstrated how true this formulation is. Here again the description of the facts as they happened on August 29, 2021.
The alleged foul of revenge with a more than unfortunate outcome
Because Jorge Martin drove into the gap when he had gone far, there was a slight collision between the rookie and the 6-time MotoGP world champion in turn 7. Apparently the Repsol Honda Star did not want to put up with this, which is why he tried a counterattack after Turn 8, which could not end well. From his point of view, it was probably a kind of foul of revenge, although the Pramac Ducati rider had not made any mistakes before, but had only cut into a gap that had opened up for him. Regardless of how you can see it, Marquez’s hara-kiri action could not go well, but had to lead to the collision of the two.
The rookie’s innocence in the collision is clearly proven
Martin lying in front of him could not see him until shortly before the collision, and he also had no room to evade. The track was too narrow for that, and his chosen line in Turn 9 was absolutely correct. But not the one of the Honda rider, who is one hundred percent to blame for the heavy crash of the two. That’s how everyone saw it, including all the commentators and eyewitnesses, but now the scandal. The FIM race management disregarded their own regulations and waived a punishment for Marquez, although he wilfully accepted his health and that of his opponent with his mindless action.
The Silverstone Circuit
MotoGP is just a business – the sport is mostly in the background
If you think this statement is exaggerated, the experiences of Iker Lecuona and Danilo Petrucci are recommended. The two were or are currently still under contract with the boss of the MotoGP team association, called IRTA. We are talking about Hervé Poncharal, a Frenchman who often looks a bit dodgy and who stayed in MotoGP for an astonishingly long time, although sometimes acting completely unsuccessfully. A good example of this was the season after switching to KTM, after which the team crashed completely in the world championship in the 2019 season and finished second from last at the end of the year. It was amazing how positively Poncharal spoke anyway and remained completely unimpressed, positive despite the catastrophic results. The explanation for this lay in the lucrative contract he had with the oranges, which meant that he no longer had to worry about the future.
A fitting example of the family atmosphere at the Austrian MotoGP manufacturer
Like KTM Motorsport Director Pit Beirer, Hervé liked to use the phrase about the KTM family when he spoke of his team. After only one season, Petrux saw how such a family works. The unfortunate Italian learned in Spielberg on the double weekend from the press that he would lose his job at the end of the year. A really great family, this KTM troop! Somehow this is reminiscent of the US series Dallas with Poncharal as J. R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman. English colleagues recently made it clear what has become of the World Prototype Championship in the meantime. A tough business, and there is not the slightest room for family feelings and atmosphere. The hypocritical sayings of Beirer, Poncharal and the like do little to change that, if you can see their ice-cold and completely reckless behaviour towards their employees.
The consequence of unsportsmanlike conduct in MotoGP – our renunciation
Of course, we don’t stop reporting on what’s going on, on the tracks. But we have cancelled all MotoGP trips with immediate effect and will only treat the race weekends as a marginal phenomenon in the future. In the end, they are in a sporting context, as the events of this season have shown since the introduction of the track limits. The problem was not the new rule, but its completely inconsistent handling by the FIM stewards. If you don’t understand what we mean by that, you should take your time, for example, to take a look at our coverage of Moto2 and MotoGP in Mugello. Or Misano WorldSSP from 2021, after we decided not to use our popular live blog in protest.
Our reaction to unsportsmanlike nonsense as we just saw at Silverstone
From now on, we will reduce ourselves to WorldSBK for current events and only an occasional summary or individual reports about the Prototype World Championship. In addition to the series-related World Cup, we will in future prefer to focus on the history of motorsport and reports on the time when it was still a sport and not just a business. Even in earlier decades, the FIM often enough played a not very glorious role. But at least it was more sport and not just business. What happened in Formula 1 in Belgium on the same weekend as in Silverstone at MotoGP was proof that things are not going any better in the premier class of automobile racing. Instead of a race, the fans experienced a pure farce with two laps in the rain behind the safety car and then a completely nonsensical rating, which corresponded to the order of the qualifying. Record world champion Lewis Hamilton then aptly stated – it’s all about the money, as far as the decision of the race management concerned.
Unless otherwise stated, this applies to all images (© MotoGP).
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