Francesco Bagnaia rages at MotoGP race direction after incorrect lap cancellation
Ducati rider Pecco Bagnaia says race direction admitted its mistake
Francesco Bagnaia was left fuming at MotoGP race direction after it admitted to incorrectly cancelling a lap time in Thai Grand Prix practice that dumped him out of Q2.
The factory Ducati rider had just moved up to seventh with a 1m29.492s in the closing stages of Friday afternoon’s second practice when the lap was cancelled.
This was ostensibly due to being set through a yellow flag zone when Marco Bezzecchi crashed at Turn 3 with just over three minutes to go.
However, Bagnaia was well clear of this zone on circuit when the crash happened and completed the lap legally, which would have been enough to secure him ninth.
His final lap was then ruined by a slowing Franco Morbidelli at Turn 5, who has been given a three-place grid penalty for Sunday's race.
Bagnaia says race direction admitted it incorrectly cancelled his lap, but said it could do nothing to reinstate it.
Pecco Bagnaia fuming after Thai MotoGP practice
“I’m more angry at race direction than for what happened with Franky because they did a very huge mistake,” he began.
“They put yellow flags from corner eight to corner three by mistake. Nobody crashed there.
“They admitted to me that ‘you are right, we did a mistake but we can’t give you the lap back because it’s like this’.
“For me, it’s not correct. For all the other riders it’s not correct because we were speaking about it in the safety commission.
“But it’s not the first time we do not agree with them, but this is it.
“I lost the first opportunity because maybe we started a bit too late the time attack session.
“We started when there were remaining 12 minutes, so I had just one attempt with the first tyre and with the second one I lost by their mistake.
“Then the second one there was a crash but no yellow flags, so imagine the chaos we had in the last minutes.
“Then in the last lap, it wasn’t just Franky; in that moment there were three riders going slower than him on the line.
“A unfortunate last 15 minutes of the session, but we have to take the positives and the positives are that we’re strong.
“So, this keeps me calm but clearly we know how difficult it is to move from Q1 to Q2.”
Read more: MotoGP race direction issues apology, explanation for yellow flag error
Pecco Bagnaia defends Simon Crafar
Bagnaia added that race direction argued from the point of view that if it reinstated his lap, it would then face more scrutiny from riders every time they had a time deleted.
“These kinds of things are more from race direction than the stewards,” he said, defending new FIM steward Simon Crafar.
“Simon Crafar was a rider and clearly understood the situation. And I think if it was up to him, he would give me back the lap time because normality is like this.
“But race direction today was more on the other sider. They said ‘ok, if we give you back the lap time then we will have much more arguing with all the other riders when we cancel the lap times’.
“I said, ‘ok, but if a rider has crashed I accept it’.
“In Barcelona I lost a pole position for this because I didn’t see the yellow flags, I did my lap time, it was pole position but it was cancelled for a yellow and I accepted it. But today, no.”
Quotes provided by Crash MotoGP Editor Peter McLaren
