Two incidents coloured the motorsport landscape on Sunday; one between teammates and the other between a championship contender and a thorny adversary.
Much was made of Nico Rosberg’s hat-throwing antics in the pre-podium greenroom at Texas, but little of the event that sparked the outburst.
That Lewis Hamilton should force Rosberg off-track at turn one – having made no attempt to steer left – almost seemed admissible given his command over his garage mate in the championship standings.
Mind you, being given the green light to do likewise just 18 months prior at Spa suggests that catalyst has shaped the lay of the land as far as that rivalry is concerned.
The ‘other’ incident of course was happening halfway around the globe in Sepang. Fuelled by pre-race suggestions from Valentino Rossi that Marc Marquez would assist compatriot Jorge Lorenzo in beating him to the title, meant the Ross-Marquez on-track duel was always going to end in tears.
But implying that a rider as canny as Rossi would make such an amateurish manoeuvre in taking out Marquez negates all the plaudits lumped onto the Italian for his shrewdness and skill – usually by the same commentators currently making an about face.
After deliberations had been made, MotoGP race director Mike Webb stated he wasn’t “going to quote what the riders said in the hearing”, but painted a rough picture of events.
“What we saw it would appear to be a deliberate move on Rossi’s part to push Marquez off the track, or push him wide,” Webb began.
“We actually believe there is fault on both sides. Valentino said it was clear to him that Marc was deliberately slowing down the pace and making it difficult for Valentino to race. That he deliberately ran wide in the turn in order to give himself an advantage in order to get away from Marquez.”
Let’s be clear. At no point was Marquez forced off track. Rossi did, however, make it overwhelmingly clear that there was no chance of his opponent turning in until he did, therefore benefitting from a better run out of the turn – again an acceptable form of race-craft. This in-turn frustrated Marquez, who forced the issue.
“Despite what Marquez said we think he was deliberately trying to affect the pace of Valentino,” Webb added. “However he didn’t actually break any rules. Whatever we think about the spirit of the championship, according to the rule book he didn’t make contact. His passes were clean. He rode within the rules.
Under this rational, one, with functional optics, would also have to determine that Rossi too rode within the rules – if not in the spirit of battle – given that at no point did the trajectory of Rossi’s steering change during the incident. Yes, he slowed Marquez down, but it was the Spanish rider that made two lunges at the Yamaha – the second triggering contact, as opposed to a phantom kick by Rossi.
“Rossi’s evidence is that his foot came off the foot-peg as a result of the contact,” Webb continued. “From all the video evidence there is no clear shot that definitely shows that his foot slipped off the foot-peg because of contact or that he deliberately kicked. I don’t have that as a ‘smoking gun’ if you like.”
What’s more disturbing, however, is Webb’s explanation as to why Rossi received three penalty points – not more or less.
“It’s a precedent” Webb explained. “The last time this happened where a rider deliberately made a manoeuvre that ended up in a crash was at Jerez this year [Karel Hanika against Juanfran Guevara]. In that case we awarded five penalty points because the rider [Hanika] admitted he did it deliberately and it was as a result of him being frustrated with the other rider.”
So a sliding scale penalty system has been adopted from an admission of grievance, rather than who initiated contact. If Marquez’s intention was to ‘gaslight’ Rossi – then I’d say it worked, not on Rossi, but on those prone to jump to conclusions.
Rosberg was strung out by his own team at Spa last year for executing a similar move to what Marquez did at Sepang – despite no official sanction from the governing body.
The irony of course is that Hamilton is the one getting rapped over the knuckles – by his own team it should be noted – for the facsimile incident at Texas last weekend. Why? Because when there’s no championship at stake, tokenistic gestures tend to come easy in calmer waters.
MotoGP will certainly be encountering some rough seas for the next few weeks, with one very shaky hand on the tiller.
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