Bastianini to raise in-race penalty appeals at Safety Commission

Enea Bastianini plans to raise the issue of appealing in-race MotoGP penalties during the Safety Commission meeting at Mugello.

The factory Ducati star deliberately ignored a long lap penalty awarded during last Sunday’s Catalunya round on the grounds that he was certain it had been applied incorrectly.

But by failing to serve that penalty, it swiftly escalated to a double long lap, ride-through and finally - when those were also ignored - a 32-second post-race time penalty.

After seeing the FIM Stewards, Bastianini claims they agreed that he was wrongly penalised with the initial long lap.

The factory Ducati rider insists he had no option but to run wide during a braking battle with Alex Marquez, and then lost more than the required one second when shortcutting the track.

But since it is not currently possible to ‘undo’ an in-race long lap penalty, his quest to have the +32 seconds removed from his race time was ‘impossible’.

The danger of allowing appeals is that it would be time-consuming during the intensity of a race and mean issuing the final results could drag on long after the finish.

But Bastianini would like to see some form of quick system for teams to challenge in-race decisions that they feel are clearly mistaken.

“Tomorrow we have the Safety Commission and it will be important to speak about what happened in Montelo,” Bastianini said on Thursday at Mugello.

“From my side, the situation was clear and after seeing many videos, I think also for the [Stewards] it was much clearer compared to before.

“But for me something has to change because it's not correct from my side, but also for all the riders. Because this time it happened to me, but it's not the first time. Let's see tomorrow.”

Pressed on what he thinks should change, the Italian said: “I think it's correct - also with the team - to have the chance to speak about this during the race.

“Because after the race you can change nothing. You have the penalty - [full] stop. I tried to get back the 32 seconds, but it was impossible because of the regulations.”

Fabio di Giannantonio sympathised with Bastianini.

“In Le Mans, I received a long lap when I was losing quite a lot [of time] cutting the chicane in the first sector,” he said. 

“But at the moment it seems that the regulations are like this. When you receive a penalty, you cannot do anything, you have to accept it. You have to do the maximum with that penalty.

“But for sure it would be nice, maybe in the future, one day, if the teams or the riders can speak in a fast way with the [Stewards], just to understand better the situation.

“Also, as Enea said, I think is a clever idea to do it during the race. More fair for everybody.

“But we are speaking about ‘if’ or ‘maybe’. The regulations at the moment are like this. So you have to accept it sometimes, even if it's hard.”

Had Bastianini served the initial long lap, even though he believed it was wrong, he would only have lost 2-3s, rather than seven points for dropping from 9th to 18th place.