Alvaro Bautista handed penalty after causing Lorenzo crash

Published on 30 Jun 2012 by Toni M.

alvaro bautista assen 2012

Wiping out Jorge Lorenzo on the first lap of today’s MotoGP race at Assen will cost Alvaro Bautista a penalty. The Race Direction who investigated the incident after Lorenzo went to their offices, immediately following the crash has decided to punish the Gresini rider with a penalty in next week’s Sachsenring GP and he’ll have to start the race at the back of grid.

Bautista apologized to Lorenzo and was extremely contrite admitting that he had made a big mistake missing his braking point but thinks that the penalty is excessive in what he believes was a just a racing incident, but many riders including Lorenzo said that the Spaniard should be banned for one race for what he did. Cal Crutchlow who was pushed back to 12th after the crash and had to ride back to take fifth called Bautista a dickhead.

As Lorenzo lost his third engine in the crash, the Yamaha rider said that the Race Direction will allow him to take another without incurring in any penalty (starting from the pitlane) if he should use up his allotted six before the end of the season, but this would have to approved the GP Commission and this could incur some wrath from other teams who may have lost their engines in crashes.

Apparently Lorenzo wields some pretty heavy clout lately, because they didn’t punish Bautista at Valencia last year when he took out Hayden, Rossi and DePuniet, nor did they punish Valentino Rossi when he wiped out Casey Stoner at Jerez and we didn’t see Alex de Angelis get penalized when he took out Hayden and Edwards at Misano in 2009, we could go on with a few other examples across all three classes, but you get our point.

Fausto Gresini lodged an appeal with the FIM Stewards but this time they confirmed the Race Direction’s decision.