The Race Direction hearing that took place yesterday afternoon to discuss the accident between Kenan Sofuoglu and Julian Simon that left the Spaniard with a fractured tiba and fibula during last Sunday’s Moto2 race at Catalunya, has cleared the Turkish rider from any blame.

“The Race Direction yesterday met with rider Kenan Sofuoglu (TUR) and Sports Director from MAPFRE Aspar Team Gino Borsoi (ITA) to hear their explanations about the collision between rider Kenan Sofuoglu and Julián Simón (ESP) during the last week Moto2 race of the Catalan Grand Prix. After listening the comments of both parties and watching a video of the incident the Race Direction concluded that rider Kenan Sofuoglu made every possible effort to try to avoid the collision. No sanction was inflicted,” read the statement.

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Yesterday’s Moto2 race at Catalunya was marred by two horrific looking crashes, the first occured on lap 6 of 23 and involved Interwetten’s Thomas Luthi and last year’s Catalunya winner Yuki Takahashi on the Gresini Moriwaki, the second was between Kenan Sofuoglu and Julian Simon.

Luthi’s rear Dunlop tire decided to step out and his Suter wanting to throw him into a highside, but the Swiss rider just held on to the side of his machine, but was then hit by Takahashi who was coming up fast and had nowhere else to go.

The incident could have had more dire consequences when they slid across the track, than just a few bruises for both riders.

“Bad luck in a Grand Prix to forget. First of all we had trouble finding the right set-up and then we got wiped out by a crash early in the race,” said the Japanese rider. “Fortunately I wasn’t hurt by the impact other than a blow to my backside. We will fight back next week in England.”

Here’s Luthi’s take on his brief race and incident:

“I had a poor start. The bike made a wheelie and I had to cut the gas, which made me lose a few positions. But then I was riding within the pursuing group of riders quite comfortably. I saw that Stefan Bradl didn’t manage to break away and I didn’t think of attacking yet. But then the bike went sideways anyway, without any pre-warning. I had a highsider and landed somehow back on the bike. Then Yuki Takahashi touched me and we both went down. But even without him running into me I don’t think I would have saved it. I didn’t get hurt in the crash, which is good. But now we have to try to solve the small problems that contributed to this crash. I am always running close to the top, in practice as well as in the races, but I have to take man risks to be that fast. We have to think about changes to the bike’s geometry to make the bike easier to ride!”

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For years the Race Direction has been more or less lackadaisical in judging racing incidents, but in these last few rounds they’ve become much more present, first wanting to investigate the marshalls handling of the Valentino Rossi - Casey Stoner incident at Jerez, then the Marco Simoncelli - Dani Pedrosa incident at Le Mans where the Italian was given a ride-through penalty and then called by the Race Direction this weekend to make sure that he understood why he had been punished.

Today in the 125cc class we saw Johann Zarco get his victory stripped away from him with a 20 second penalty after he elbowed Nico Terol on to the grass at the last corner and now they want to investigate Kenan Sofuoglu-Julian Simon incident that happened during the Moto2 race.

The accident began when Sofuoglu clipped the rear wheel of Simon on lap 16. The Spaniard highsided and the Turkish rider ran off track but was unable to avoid hitting the tumbling Aspar rider.

Continue reading: Video: Race Direction to investigate Kenan Sofuoglu, Julian Simon incident

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This is what happened yesterday in Moto2 at the Montmelò circuit when the 41 rider field negotiated turn one on the opening lap when veteran rider Alex Debon made a move up the inside corner with his FTR bike and set off this chain reaction and pile-up.

Debon, who besides riding is also the team manager of Motor Sport 69 which runs under Aeroport de Castello-Ajo sponsors banner, was already injured after breaking his right collarbone in last week’s Assen qualifying session after hitting slow moving Ratthapark Wilairot (who was fined for the incident).

Debon, who recently announced that he would be retiring at the end of this season did not get off lightly, because he was rushed to the nearby hospital for suspected internal injuries.

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Carmelo Morales is better known is Spain as a CEV rider and this weekend he was called in to replace injured Axel Pons in the Pons Kalex Moto2 team for the Catalunya round.

Now Morales has become famous worldwide after this horrific looking accident, when trying to slipstream Kenny Noyes over the finish line, he clipped the American’s rear tire and he and his bike were launched into the air. Morales was hit twice by his machine, which then flew into the catch-fencing on the finish line.

Amazingly enough, the Spaniard ended up with only heavy bruising and thanking his lucky star for his back protector.

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Today’s Moto2 Catalunya race was action packed and full of drama with Yuki Takahashi from Tech 3 Racing team taking the win after Andrea Iannone was penalized for overtaking under the yellow flag regime.

The race was yellow flagged when a huge crash at the start of the race saw a nine-rider pile-up at turn one triggered by Alex Debón that saw Mike di Meglio, Roberto Rolfo, Robertino Pietri , Shoya Tomizawa, Héctor Faubel, Dominique Aegerter, Sergio Gadea, and Alex Baldolini all going down.

The the flags waving Andrea Iannone took third from Takahashi at turn 1 and then passed Toni Elias at the New Holland and Luthi and proceeded pouring on the speed and breaking away from the rest of field.

The race direction issued Iannone with a go back one position penalty on lap 7, and he was holding over 1.3sec lead by that time. The Italian ignored the penalty, later stating he couldn’t read his pit board where his team tried to convey the penalty with pen and paper. Seven laps later Iannone was given a ride through penalty and this penalty he understood and went through the pitlane and rejoined the race and then rode to 13th.

Continue reading: Moto2 Catalunya: Crashes, Yellow Flags, Ride Throughs, Drama and Takahashi Wins

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Andrea Iannone took his third pole position of the season and his second in a row in today’s Moto2 qualifying session ahead of the Catalunya GP. The Fimmco Speed Up rider put in a best lap of 1′47″493 that set him on top of the timesheets and 0.267s ahead of Yuki Takahashi and third place Thomas Luthi who is riding with an injured collarbone.

Toni Elias, the current points leader took fourth followed by Jules Cluzel in fifth who was more that six tenths off Iannone’s best time.

Carmelo Morales, who is riding as substitute for injured Axel Pons took sixth. The Spanish rider is the 2008 and 2009 European Superstock 1000 champion and currently races in the Spanish CEV with the Laglisse team on a Suter, and this is the first time he’s ridden a Kalex chassis.

Continue reading: Moto Qualifying: Andrea Iannone on Pole Again

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