Aleix Espargaró was one of the protagonists in the French GP but, very quickly, he began to lose positions on the grid and that all began after being hit by one rider but it didn’t end that as, afterwards, we was also hit another time and in both cases without any of the riders who hit him to be penalised.
The Aprilia Racing rider explained what happened and why his performance dropped: ‘I was not brilliant today but I wasn’t that bad. The pace was good enough to finish in the top five but Enea [Bastianini] hit me at a very very high speed, luckily it was the run off area’.
The spaniard questioned why his opponents weren’t penalised for the action of hitting him: ‘I don’t understand why he didn’t get a penalty for the action really, and then I lost a lot of time behind DiGia [Fabio Di Giannantonio], behind [Fabio] Quartararo, overtook them a couple of times but they overtook me again and then in the last chicane Franco [Morbidelli] also hit me, also very hard, and then [Brad] Binder overtook me and apologised after the chekered flag and also no penalty. There was nothing I could do really, it was a strange race’.
Remember that Bastianini did get a two Long Lap penalty but not for hitting Espargaró, but instead for cutting the race line.
Asked if Enea actually hit him, as there weren’t many images about the incident, the #41 was clear: ‘Not Enea, he had to pick up the bike, it was very quick, but also Franco. If I didn’t picked up the bike I would have crashed. The feeling is that they award a penalty if you crash but you have to judge and penalise the action, not the outcome, the result. I really didn’t understand. I lost my race there, at that part and stage of the race, not to fight for the victory, for the podium, but I was good, six seconds’.
And added: ‘I could fight for the top five. I expected to be faster but didn’t have the grip. I expected that, with the lower temperature, to have better traction and yesterday I felt a lot stronger and today I wasn’t. The feeling is that I have some speed during the weekends but I cannot find stability and push like I pushed in the past’.