Suzuki MotoGP team boss Davide Brivio says Yamaha’s engine penalty means there will be a “shadow” over the championship if a Yamaha rider beats the Suzukis to the title.
But Brivio says he and his team have elected not to fight against the constructors’ and teams’ penalty handed to Yamaha yesterday because Suzuki wants the fight to continue cleanly rather than through protests and appeals.
“We played the game, and in my opinion there is a shadow on their championship. This is not my fault, it is a situation they have created by themselves” :: Davide Brivio
While details remain to be fully clarified by the FIM about exactly what Yamaha was penalised for, the manufacturer was punished by having 50 points removed from its constructors’ championship effort and 20 and 37 respectively from Monster Energy Yamaha and Petronas SRT Yamaha in the teams’ championship.
They were deemed to have illegally modified their engines for the opening round of the 2020 season, by replacing the valves placed into their sealed engines.
Many were surprised when the penalty handed down only applied to the teams’ and constructors’ and not to the riders’ championship.
“If you don’t penalise the Yamaha riders, you put a shadow on them,” Brivio told journalists today at the European Grand Prix, “because they scored heavy points at the first race.
“From my point of view personally, I’m happy that they didn’t penalise the riders, because we prefer to fight on the track and we didn’t want any clouds on us.
“This situation plays against them, by putting a shadow on their championship, not on ours.
“We played the game, and in my opinion there is a shadow on their championship.
“This is not my fault, it is a situation they have created by themselves.
“We will accept any penalty because it’s not our job to award penalties, and maybe we are too romantic.
“But we are focused on the sport. If we made an appeal it would take weeks, we would maybe know the result of the championship in December of January – and that is not the way.”
Suzuki rider Joan Mir currently leads the championship by 14 points, with Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, Maverick Vinales and Franco Morbidelli occupying the next three places.
Despite taking the judgement in a sporting way, Brivio – a long-time Yamaha man before joining Suzuki and creating a family atmosphere in the team – says that there have to be lessons learned from it.
Suzuki itself suffered in 2017 due to starting the season with an unsuccessful crankshaft in its sealed engines, and he is well aware of what the consequences can be of such a misjudgement under the rules.
“We have to make sure it doesn’t happen anymore,” he said, “we have to take experience from it.
“It’s hard to separate the manufacturer from the rider, but we have to take something from this.
“If someone has to make an adjustment then they have to follow the rules.”
Brivio wasn’t the only one incensed by the decision not to penalise Yamaha’s riders, either, with reigning world champion Marc Marquez taking to Twitter last night to express his own disagreement.
“Now it turns out that the pilots do not benefit from the mechanical advantages,” he posted tongue-in-cheek.
