Miguel Oliveira was at the center of one of the controversial moments in the Sprint race of the Italian MotoGP Grand Prix. On the second lap, he attempted to overtake Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) while aiming for 15th place, but the maneuver resulted in contact that caused both to crash and abandon the race.
The rider from Trackhouse Racing explained to the press: ‘I did go for the gap, but it was a shame. I crashed with Fabio. I didn’t want that to happen first of all. But it was already a consequence of starting really bad – I couldn’t disengage my device in turn 1, so up to turn 6 I was losing positions and getting everyone running in the back of me. The first time I could really get my lap together I started to look for opportunities to overtake, but I couldn’t make it happen into turn 10, so it’s a shame for that. We’ll try again tomorrow’.
When asked if he spoke to Quartararo about the incident, Oliveira shared more details regarding his view of the incident: ‘I said sorry to him immediatly because I tried to overtake him, he saw me quite late and he picked up to try to avoid me, but still we both crashed and of course it’s a shame when you take someone out. But I was trying to overtake, I didn’t launch from 15 meters and hit him’.
In the Portuguese rider’s opinion, this could have been an incident on the borderline of penalization: ‘I think it was probably a borderline decision between penalty or no penalty. But I was trying to overtake and if you can overtake and you get a penalty for that, then it will be also hard to do it’.