MotoGp Ducati, Zarco-Pol Espargaró clash: ‘Criminal maneuver’

Johann Zarco lashes out at Honda Spaniard, penalized three positions

Tension in the first free practice of the MotoGp Malaysian Grand Prix, when on the Sepang track Ducati centaur Johann Zarco and Honda rider Pol Espargaró nearly collided after a dangerous maneuver by the Spaniard.

The Honda centaur, who was penalized for his action by three positions on the grid, protested the decision: “It’s the same thing as always, you try to explain to them that the good thing would be to go to the place to see if what you say is true, if the green zone ends at a certain time. They would understand and not penalize me. But they don’t, they don’t understand anything, and they penalized me three positions on the grid on the second lap of FP1. The maneuver was not pleasant. It was not nice, I don’t like it either. But to understand the maneuver you have to understand what happened.”

Of a different opinion Johann Zarco, who called the maneuver “criminal” after free practice: “I was in a lap where I was trying to do well and I had to close the throttle to avoid it. We can’t turn a blind eye to these situations, because I know some people would call this behavior criminal, so I couldn’t say ‘we turn a blind eye to this,’ because I was also afraid.”