The results of qualifying for MotoGP’s season-opener at Jerez should be in question due to a yellow flag controversy at the end of the session, believes Aprilia rider Bradley Smith.
A number of riders managed to set their fastest times of Spanish Grand Prix qualifying after yellow flags came out due to Alex Rins and Jack Miller’s late crashes.
Fabio Quartararo took pole position for the first race of the delayed 2020 season, setting a new outright lap record in the process to end the day 0.139s ahead of fellow Yamaha rider Maverick Vinales.
“I have question marks about who actually deserves to be on pole position today” :: Bradley Smith
However, while he and a number of other riders were completing their fastest laps of the day, marshals were attending to not one but two fast crashes at Turn 11, with both Miller and Rins crashing heavily and requiring assistance while the session continued around them.
Speaking to The Race after the qualifying session was completed, Aprilia rider Smith argued race control should be penalising riders.
“I do not agree with two or three riders improving their time in the last lap when there were waved yellow flags, two riders down at Turn 11, two bikes in the gravel and five or six marshals there,” said Smith.
“That’s dangerous, and anyone who accepts that it’s right is downright wrong.
“It’s something that we really need to take into consideration, and I really don’t care if it ruins Q2 because that’s the way that it comes down sometimes.
“You have two opportunities and two chances in the session.
“I believe that the rule states you must slow down and you must not improve your sector, so I have question marks about who actually deserves to be on pole position today.”
“I slowed down a little bit and wasn’t really at 100%, at the limit, in that corner” :: Fabio Quartararo
The Jerez incident is the latest in a series of concerns raised by some riders about what they are construing as increasingly lax enforcement of the series’ rules on what takes place under a caution flag.
According to the MotoGP rule book, when a yellow flag is being waved at the scene of an incident, riders ‘must slow down and be prepared to stop’. Failure to do so results in ‘the cancellation of the time of the lap during which the infraction occurred’.
None of the riders who set personal best times while passing the Rins and Miller incidents received any penalty.
The Race has approached MotoGP for a comment on the matter.
When asked about the pole run by The Race, Quartararo suggested he did react to the yellow flags and that slowed down, but was still able to complete the lap under his existing record pace from this morning.
“The lap could have been a little bit better but only by 0.0-something,” he said.
“I made a mistake in Turn 6 then there was the crash in Turn 11. I didn’t really see who it was but when you see a bike in the gravel and a yellow flag you don’t go as fast as normal.
“I slowed down a little bit and wasn’t really at 100%, at the limit, in that corner.
“My lap was still really good, and it was almost perfect apart from those two points.”
“I didn’t look behind me to see Rins because I didn’t expect someone to be pushing in that situation” :: Marc Marquez
The yellow flag issue most recently came to a head at the final round of the 2019 season at Valencia, when Johann Zarco was dramatically cut down in the gravel trap by Iker Lecuona’s tumbling Tech3 KTM machine. Zarco was walking away from an incident of his own when Lecuona’s bike sent him flying, and he was lucky to escape uninjured.
The qualifying controversy today wasn’t the only incident of the day involving Rins and yellow flags, either.
The Suzuki rider clashed with Marc Marquez on track earlier in the day, with the reigning champion seemingly cruising on the racing line during the closing stages of practice three.
However, when Suzuki appealed to the race stewards, Marquez said that he had in fact slowed down because of waved yellow flags, and didn’t receive a widely-expected penalty for his actions.
“I didn’t see Rins, but what the cameras didn’t show was the double yellow flag on Turn 2 with some marshals and a bike in the gravel,” Marquez explained.
“I slowed down, because when it’s a double yellow flag you must slow down – you can’t be on your fastest lap.
“I didn’t look behind me to see Rins because I didn’t expect someone to be pushing in that situation.”
