Maverick Vinales on Marco Bezzecchi tangle: ‘I think the stewards understand’

A “sore” Maverick Vinales says he has spoken to MotoGP’s stewards about his tangle in the Australian Grand Prix sprint with Marco Bezzecchi and ‘thinks they understand’.

Vinales - who qualified on the front row in third - passed Bezzecchi for fifth place before they both got to the braking zone of Turn 1 at Phillip Island on the penultimate lap of the sprint.

Bezzecchi then appeared unable to stop as he braked for Turn 1 and ran into the rear of the Aprilia in a scary incident.

Vinales has suffered no broken bones but will undergo anti-inflammatory treatment, while Bezzecchi had to be taken to hospital for checks - though also appears to have escaped without any fractures.

The incident is currently under review but has been delayed until Sunday owing to Bezzecchi being unable to attend his stewards hearing.

Vinales stopped short of saying the VR46 rider should be penalised, but suggests this is the direction the stewards should go in after speaking to them.

“I feel very sore,” he told motogp.com.

“Obviously now more and more pain is coming. It’s normal. The crash was big. I entered really fast onto the gravel.

“Luckily the helmet worked and also thanks to Arai and Alpinestars, because always it keeps you really safe and that’s fantastic.

“Feels like nothing is broken, but everything is very sore, especially the hand and the arms.

“We’ll see, from my point of view, what I felt was that he tried to overtake me again when I overtook him.

“Obviously, I was aware that I could not cross the line, so I braked leaving him some space.

“But probably he misunderstood the braking point or something and when he braked, he was all over me.

“Stewards need to decide which is the line of the incident. I explained to them very well what happened and I think they understand.

“They were listening, which is very important, and we’ll see. We were expecting… luckily, we are both ok and we’re going to race tomorrow.”

Fernandez gets top Aprilia honours in sprint

Aprilia’s honour was upheld in the sprint after Vinales’ exit by Trackhouse Racing’s Raul Fernandez, who was seventh at the chequered flag having qualified sixth.

But a tyre pressure penalty for VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio promoted Fernandez to sixth, marking his best sprint result of the year.

While the Spaniard concedes that “a little bit of luck” was on his side, he praised Trackhouse’s turnaround from a tough Friday as he feels the team “lost one day” in Australia.

“It’s true that we did a really good day,” Fernandez said.

“Also it’s true we had a little bit of luck, because at the end we were 10th and for some crashes I took some points. But anyway, we did a really good job.

“Yesterday was really difficult for us, for the team. So, more or less we can say we lost one day and we recovered well.

“It’s true that, for example, for me today in the sprint it was the first time I tried the hard front.

“So, basically I did the sprint to take info for tomorrow, and also I did this on the rear.

“So it was more to take experience for tomorrow, to know how the feeling is on the tyre than to try to think to take some points.”