In what is becoming the most predictably repetitive storyline of the 2021 MotoGP, the FIM MotoGP stewards have once again come under fire from a number of top riders for what they perceived as a lack of action following today’s qualifying sessions at the Sachsenring.
Premier-class qualifying for the German Grand Prix saw scenes more reminiscent of Moto3 than MotoGP, as riders waited on track or cruised around (sometimes on the racing line) to set up their qualifying laps.
And while rookie Enea Bastianini did get penalised, with a three-place grid demotion, for cruising and impeding Danilo Petrucci in the first segment, there were no sanctions for anything that happened in Q2.
“The Sachsenring is a bit of a special place because it’s so small,” explained Red Bull KTM rider Brad Binder after the session. “Normally in qualifying you try to find a good section of track where you can be alone, because sometimes in MotoGP to have bikes around you isn’t ideal.
“It makes the bike quite unstable in the turbulence from the other bikes, so for a full-on quick lap it always feels better.
“If you have a reference in front of you, great, but if you do you need to have a bit of a gap because otherwise it disturbs you a little bit.
“[But] the [Sachsenring] track is tiny, and it was just chaos out there, because no one wants to be the first guy pulling the group along.”
A number of riders failed to find clear track for their own time attacks as a result, with Pecco Bagnaia explaining the situation he encountered on track during the final Q2 session.
“When I started pushing there was a group of five riders slowing down in front of me,” said the Ducati racer. “They were so slow, and in my first lap I was better in the first sector and then in the second I found [Takaaki] Nakagami going slow in the middle of the track. I aborted the lap, pushed for the second one, and when I arrived in Turn 7 there was [Jorge] Martin, Marquez, Espargaro and one more slow on the outside of the line but very close to it.
“Later, I had a red sector [was on pace to go quickest after sector two] and there was [Miguel] Oliveira going very slowly in Turn 8 and I had to abort the lap, and then Nakagami crashed in front of me and the yellow flags came out. It was impossible for me to do a lap today just because the riders in front of me were so slow on the line.
“It’s something that I don’t like to see because it looks like our qualifying is now very similar to Moto3’s. We are always speaking about safety and about what we see in Moto3 – and today some MotoGP riders were doing the same thing, and I’m not happy to see a situation like this.”
But, with the antics the same as has seen increasingly severe punishments handed down in the lightweight class of late, a number of top names in MotoGP perceived an inconsistency in stewards failing to punish premier-class riders for the same actions.
“I”m so angry, because we can’t continue like this in terms of the stewards,” fumed Suzuki’s Alex Rins. “We are MotoGP riders, and we try to show to Moto3 that we can’t stop, can’t follow – then I find a big group in the last corner, nearly stopped, on my first fast lap. It makes no sense, and they need to do something.
“In the safety commission, we are always talking about this, and at a lot of races we complain that they need to be stronger with their decisions – but in the end it’s always the same.”
That’s a sentiment echoed by Repsol Honda’s Pol Espargaro.
“It’s very sad,” said Espargaro, “because in the last safety commission, we had [Moto3 rider] Andrea Migno talking with all the MotoGP riders and the stewards, saying that for sure the category is pretty dangerous at the moment.
“For the spectators it’s funny but to have so many guys waiting and having so many troubles, crashes, one rider going through another because they are so tight… We had him in the safety commission, talking about how dangerous it is to have everyone waiting, stopped in the middle of the lap, blah blah blah.
“But at the end the MotoGP guys are doing the same. We are the ones that need to give an example to them [the lower classes]. And we are not doing it. So, I am not saying I don’t do that, this is a criticism of all the riders, me included. So for sure we need to change this.”
Rins was one of a number of riders who was caught out during qualifying, losing the chance to set a fast lap when he was forced to roll off during his time attack. He expressed another frustration afterwards, too, seeing a lack of input from stewards over their decisions.
“It’s frustrating,” he admitted. “They need to do something, but in the end, we send messages and emails to them and you get answers like ‘we don’t feel like they disturbed your rider’.
“This makes no sense. When the TV camera shows lots of people waiting on track, they need to get penalised immediately.
“Moto3 has a rule where if they’re slow in one sector they have a penalty. It’s true that we’re MotoGP, that everyone here is fast – I mean, the last guy is at 1.5 seconds from the first. But everyone has experience to push alone.
“They need to penalise, they need to do something, because in the end we talk and talk and talk and they never do anything.”
