revtothelimit - motorbike forum

MotoGP champion Fabio Quartararo has made his anger clear at receiving a Long Lap penalty for Sunday’s collision with Aleix Espargaro at Assen.

With the penalty verdict issued after Quartararo had completed his media commitments, the Frenchman’s feelings were unknown until he posted the following Instagram story on Monday:

“Well… A long lap for the next race. Now you cannot try an overtake because they think you are too ambitious.

"From the beginning of the year some riders made “RACING INCIDENT” but apparently mine was too dangerous.

“Congratulations to the Stewards for the amazing job that you are doing.

"Next time I will [not] try any overtake to think about not taking a penalty.

“GREAT HOLIDAYS AND SEE YOU IN SILVERSTONE.”

Quartararo, who has only failed to finish two races in the last two seasons, apologised to Aleix Espargaro for what he called a ‘stupid mistake’ in trying to pass the Aprilia rider at the hairpin on lap 5.


The Monster Yamaha star fell during the incident, with Espargaro remaining on two-wheels but being pushed off track. Espargaro lost around ten-seconds, rejoining in 15th place before fighting his way up to fourth.

Suspecting a bike problem due to the accident damage, Quartararo made a pit stop but was sent back out and then suffered a nasty highside on the exit of the same Turn 5, possibly due to a traction control failure.

Although the earlier clash cost Espargaro a potential second MotoGP victory, the 13 points he took from Quartararo’s title lead (now reduced to 21 over the Aprilia rider) was far larger than Espargaro could realistically have imagined if the incident had not occurred.

The Long Lap penalty is likely to cause Quartararo to lose around 4-6 places in the early stages of the Silverstone race.

FIM Stewards: 'Quartararo was overly ambitious'
In explaining their decision, the FIM Stewards released the following statement:

'During the MotoGP race at the Motul TT Assen, an incident between #20 Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) and #41 Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing) saw rider #20 crash and make contact with #41 at Turn 5.

'The FIM MotoGP Stewards panel deemed Quartararo was overly ambitious in attempting to overtake A Espargaro. #20 was not in a position to successfully complete the move and subsequently crashed, causing contact with #41 and forcing him to run wide.

'The avoiding action undertaken by A Espargaro allowed him to avoid crashing and rejoin. Nevertheless, his race was severely impacted.

Quartararo has been given a Long Lap penalty to be served in the MotoGP race at the Monster Energy British Grand Prix.'

It's difficult for me to understand that, because I'm certain I've seen worse moves classed as racing incidents.

How do the stewards take the decision? Do they have a set of guides that tell them if someone is 'overly ambitious'?

TBF, I know I've seen a ton of overly ambitious moves be successful, so I kinda struggle to see how they have made this decision

It was a rash move and he's sore at the payback. Shows he's human.

I'm not a fan of nit picking rules,all that 'touching the green' bollox gets in the way of good racing,but Fabio's lunge was from quite a way back. If he hadn't lost the front and taken out Aleix,no more would have been said,but the gamble didn't work,so the stewards have to be seen to do something. That said and given other 'racing incidents',I can understand why he's aggrieved.

Cool. I understand a bit better , thank you. I don't have the same understanding of positioning etc so can't always see when something is a gamble! (Other times its bleeding obvious!)

I did wonder about some of the others in comparison. Most race weekends someone takes someone else out, but rarely (that I remember) is there a penalty - maybe I'm not paying enough attention!

Noggin wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:26 pm Cool. I understand a bit better , thank you. I don't have the same understanding of positioning etc so can't always see when something is a gamble! (Other times its bleeding obvious!)

I did wonder about some of the others in comparison. Most race weekends someone takes someone else out, but rarely (that I remember) is there a penalty - maybe I'm not paying enough attention!

They've been leaning heavily on the Moto3 class of late,probably rightly so,because they are young and mad as a box of frogs. The last few seasons they've been dishing out mass penalties for dawdlers looking for a tow during qualifying,etc. The stewards job is never going to be popular. If they can find a balance between safety and not spoiling the spectacle,that's cool.

Skub wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:23 pm It was a rash move and he's sore at the payback. Shows he's human.

I'm not a fan of nit picking rules,all that 'touching the green' bollox gets in the way of good racing,

Have to disagree. That's the circuit limits. They have equally strict rules about lines in athletics, tennis and football and many more.

Interesting how Fabio gets a LL penalty, but Taka Nakagami's banzai move skittling 2 or 3 riders was regarded as a racing incident.

But Fabio rides for Yamaha and Taka rides for Honda...

Noggin wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:26 pm Cool. I understand a bit better , thank you. I don't have the same understanding of positioning etc so can't always see when something is a gamble! (Other times its bleeding obvious!)

I'm no racer but never in a month of Mondays was Fabio gonna make that overtake. Even worse it wasn't even a last lap rush of blood to the head. He properly fucked it esp when viewed from overhead.

I've seen equally iffy moves that haven't necessarily got a punishment but when the title leader takes out the challenger it probably makes a difference.

Let's see what happens when somebody else collides with the Fab Frog

I guess the biggest issue is the consistency.
It’s not great, and they never seem to explain any of them either.

Do any of you listen to “The Race” Pod cast by Toby Moody and Simon Paterson? They go hard about stuff like that.

The rules could be simple. If you crash and disadvantage another rider, you get a penalty.

Yorick wrote: Tue Jul 05, 2022 10:52 am The rules could be simple. If you crash and disadvantage another rider, you get a penalty.

And then you'd have no end of penalties, and the racing would suffer as riders would be wary of overtaking. To be honest there's no easy solution, but what is really lacking is any kind of consistency in applying penalties. How can Fabio get a penalty when Nakagami didn't?

In Fabio's case it didn't actually disadvantage Aleix as much as it could have done, as Aleix actually cut the deficit to Fabio by more than if the incident hadn't occurred. In absolute terms he probably lost points, but not in comparative terms.

They need Loris Capirossi and Tetsuya Harada to set the rules

Freddie Spencer has been out of the game for too long to be chairman of stewards. Plus his ties to Honda are of some concern.

Supermofo wrote: Fri Jul 01, 2022 4:12 pm I'm no racer but never in a month of Mondays was Fabio gonna make that overtake.

Just dug it out to have a look:


Agreed, I'd give slim odds he'd have even made it around the corner, never mind stuck the overtake.