Repsol Honda rider Pol Espargaro says that the fact that it took three years for the video of former Moto3 rider Tom Booth-Amos being assaulted by his crew chief to surface indicates that there is a long road to go towards making the MotoGP paddock a better place to work.
The video, first shot three years previously at the Thai Grand Prix, only came to light at the last round of the championship, and immediately caused a whirlwind of controversy that culminated in a joint statement by series promoters Dorna and teams’ association IRTA confirming that the mechanic in question will lose his current job with the Max Racing Team following next week’s penultimate race of the Moto3 campaign in Malaysia.
But while many have applauded the series for taking action, it also left questions about why it took three years for the video evidence to emerge – something that Espargaro says is proof in itself that there’s still a long way to go in the championship, even if the dynamic is normally in favour of riders rather than against them.
“It’s really sad that it appears after three years,” he said. “This means that some people in the paddock are used to these kinds of things. Someone who saw this and wasn’t used to it would say ‘hey, this isn’t right’ but if this happened and no one said anything it means it’s happened in the past and people are used to it.
“For me, it’s sad that it’s only appeared after three years, and it’s something that must be radically finished. Normally, we’ve seen many times the riders who lose their manners talking to the mechanics or the crew chiefs, and I think in both parts it’s bad.
“We’ve figured it out that one chief mechanic did this to one rider, but I’ve seen many many more times a rider, top riders in MotoGP, talking very bad to the mechanics. This is very sad in both ways.
“I understand that the adrenaline is high when you race motorcycles, but this can never happen in MotoGP or in any sport. Seeing these images was very sad.”
And while the mechanic in particular has now been punished by his current employer, Espargaro says that it should have never been allowed to escalate to the point where he went unpunished by his then-team CIP Moto, with the Spaniard adamant that it’s the job of team bosses to intervene be it a rider or a mechanic whose behaviour is unacceptable.
“Every team has a top [person] responsible,” he said. “There are mechanics, the chief mechanic, the crew chief. There are different components, but there is a guy managing all these guys. One guy managing that everything works. In this case, in that team when [the thing with] Booth-Amos happened, the responsible guy should have someone above him, and he was responsible too.
“I know that to take some decisions are hard, to change this kind of guy in the middle of the year is hard, but you cannot allow this to happen in the team. And to do the same when it’s the rider. It’s happened to me – I was young, screaming inside the pit box, and the people surrounding me said ‘hey, guy, you cannot do this.’ It needs someone to stop it.”
