Simon Crafar delivers “70-30” blame for Pecco Bagnaia-Alex Marquez clash
Next season's chairman of Race Direction has his say on Aragon crash
Alex Marquez should take 70% of the blame for the incident in Aragon with Francesco Bagnaia.
That is the view of Simon Crafar who, next season, will become chairman of Race Direction.
Bagnaia and Marquez crashed out of last weekend’s Aragon MotoGP. Bagnaia has since apologised for claiming that his rival caused the contact purposely, but remains insistent that Marquez was at fault.
The collision was ruled a racing incident by FIM stewards.
Crafar offered his frank judgement from the paddock in Misano.
“I know that [Aragon] circuit well, I’ve done a lot of laps around there,” he said.
“I know that, when you ride wide at Turn 12, your Turn 13 is damaged.
“You are never going to please everyone.
“None of us have the same access to cameras as Race Direction, and I trust they’ve watched every one. They spend a long time analysing and I have to respect what they’ve decided, because they have more info than us.
“But my gut feeling is that the majority of the blame is with Alex. That’s my take, without having seen all of the cameras that Race Direction have.”
Crafar was asked if Bagnaia should have remained more patient with his manoeuvre.
He responded: “I bet he wishes that he was!
“That’s why I say ‘majority’ and not ‘all of the blame’.
“Enea Bastianini pulled the move off safely, in the race, on two riders.
“I’ve answered how I feel. Unless there’s info that I don’t know, I won’t change my mind.
“I would say 70-30 on Alex’s side, blame-wise.”
The clash occurred with just six laps remaining. Bagnaia was set to score valuable points in the championship battle.
“He caught Alex two-and-a-half seconds in a few laps,” Crafar analysed.
“If he let Alex go, Alex had a horrible angle of approach so would have gone slow through the turn or ran wide, and Pecco could have passed him on the inside of the next right-hander.”
Instead, Bagnaia left Aragon point-less and trailing championship leader Jorge Martin by 23 points.
The ramifications continue into this weekend’s San Marino MotoGP.
Bagnaia is still at his physical optimum because he is still carrying knocks from Sunday’s incident.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
