FIM: Bagnaia, Marquez Verdict Reached

March 26, 2024Speed Trap Magazine
MotoGP

Following the Portuguese Grand Prix an investigations Bagnaia and Marquez will avoid further penalty after their incident at the Portuguese Grand Prix. While the riders blame each other for the incident the FIM stewards have deemed the incident a no fault racing incident. “When Marc arrived, he tried to overtake me, but he went wide,” Bagnaia told MotoGP.com. “I just tried to close the line, he tried to close his line, and we collided. So, unluckily, we ended up scoring zero points, and at the next race we have to fight back to close the gap a bit.” I didn’t expect that mistake from Pecco in this race,” Marquez said, “because we were fighting for fifth position.”

It’s clear there is no ownership of blame in this incident. The important outcome is that both riders appear to have emerged from the incident without injury. Other riders weighed in on the incident.

Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia Racing)

“I saw it in a replay. For me it’s a racing incident. It’s always a difficult corner to negotiate. But I think Pecco could give a bit more space to Marc in order to avoid the contact.”

Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing)

“I kind of could because early on in the race when we went out of Turn 5 those two were absolutely banging each other, coming out of Turn 5 they hit into each other and every time they probably touched three or four times through the acceleration through six, and every time they’re hitting the one on the outside was losing the front and the one on the inside was almost high siding and I was behind trying to obviously go with the group, but I was just waiting for an absolute aeroplane crash in front of me.

There was no love lost there, they’re all pushing hard at the beginning as we all were, but it obviously all boiled over there at the end. It’s a hard place to pass this track, to pass nicely, and it’s unfortunate what happened but that’s racing and I’m sure those boys will be back to fight in Texas.”