The second free practice of the MotoGP Qatar GP was marked by an incident between Franco Morbidelli and Aleix Espargaró, in which the Aprilia rider slapped the helmet of his rival, resulting in a penalty of six grid positions for the main race. A penalty considered insufficient by the Monster Energy Yamaha rider, who felt deeply disrespected.
Morbidelli explained to the press what happened: ‘Álex Márquez crashed in turn two and there was a yellow flag, so [Jorge] Martín in front of me slowed down, I slowed down as well. But by the time we reached turn four Aleix overtook me and then I overtook him back because I wanted to get back my original position. And then he overtook me like crazy into the turn six, almost crashing and almost making me crash. He touched me’.
Then, the Italian strongly criticized the disrespect he felt he had been subjected to by Espargaró: ‘Then when I was trying to tell him to take it easy – because as always after he banged on me, he got angry and started to make bad gestures as he always does. When I was telling him to take it easy and to chill out, he did what you saw. It’s a huge disrespect action towards me, it’s difficult to take, but I take it’.
As for the penalty given to Espargaró, Morbidelli considers it to be too light: ‘The stewards have been analysing everything and they already took the countermeasures that they thought were more right. According to me, they did nothing, because what they did actually was to put him by my side in tomorrow’s race [starting grid] and make him race in today’s race as if nothing happened. So for me they did nothing, because what he did today it’s a big disrespect towards another competitor that in other sport would have been treated in a much different way. So it’s OK, I keep going’.