MotoGP | Marini: “Enea’s overtaking should be penalized, I ask for clear rules”

Penalty or no penalty? This weekend’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix left us with the question of Enea Bastianini’s overtaking of Jorge Martin on the last lap of the race. Some say it was a racing contact, while others are of the opinion that the maneuver should be penalized. Some MotoGP riders, questioned after the Misano race, also had their say. Among them is Luca Marini, who has very clear ideas about what happened.

“I’ve only seen it once, but my opinion is that it’s not right to push another rider off the track,” explained the Honda rider, who is always very precise and attentive. “Be careful, I’m happy for Pecco because this way it’s definitely better for him (laughs, ed.). But, jokes aside, we are going in a direction where it is increasingly difficult to overtake, especially on this track. So I understand Enea’s difficulties”.

“But if Martin hadn’t raised the bike, he would have fallen. So Jorge would have had to sacrifice himself so that Bastianini would be penalized, because if he had fallen there would have been a penalty. Martin remained standing and Bastianini wasn’t punished, but the maneuver doesn’t change and this seems senseless to me,” continued the rider from Tavullia.

At this point the age-old discussion about the uniformity of Race Direction returns. Pecco Bagnaia defended Bastianini by claiming that he himself had been overtaken by a very similar move by Martin last year in India. On that occasion he was not penalized, so the Spaniard must expect to receive maneuvers that he himself does. But, on other occasions, discontent has emerged for the difference in thinking regarding similar or even identical maneuvers that have been considered with different yardsticks.

Marini also appealed to this: “I only ask that the rules be clear: if this is the case, let them continue like this at least until the end of the season, then we can talk about it to find a better solution. If someone does the same in Indonesia, I expect the same treatment,” he said.

Marini then went on to analyze his race, where he obtained the best result of the season. The 12th place in Misano gives confidence to the HRC rider, who now faces the Asian trip with higher morale. The new features brought to the tests two weeks ago proved interesting and the rider from Pesaro seemed happy with the performance of the RC213V, even if it is still far from the leaders.

“We have improved a lot compared to last weekend, finishing the race in 12th place is a great result for us. We still have the first 3 laps to go because we can’t get the rear tyre up to temperature. From the tests I felt a huge difference, this aerodynamics helps a lot. The new features have made us make many small improvements that, all together, have given us 3 or 4 tenths. We must be satisfied and I think that between now and the end of the year we can find another 2 tenths. A good result was needed to face the last part of the championship”, concluded Marini.