MotoGP | Quartararo penalized in the Sprint, but remains ninth

Fabio Quartararo is having a difficult weekend at the Argentine Grand Prix, where he is struggling to be competitive with his factory Yamaha.

On Saturday, the 2021 MotoGP champion started tenth in the Sprint and couldn’t do much to move up the pack, having to settle for ninth place after 12 laps of the race.

Then, more than three and a half hours after the checkered flag, “El Diablo” was the subject of a statement from the FIM stewards announcing a one-second penalty for overtaking Takaaki Nakagami under yellow flags during the Sprint .

However, this doesn’t change the ninth place obtained by Quartararo on Saturday at Termas de Rio Hondo, so the transalpine rider doesn’t even lose the small point he had won yesterday.

Here is the text of the penalty for Quartararo:

“On April 1, 2023, during the MotoGP Sprint of the Michelin Grand Prix of the Argentine Republic, he overtook the No. 30 rider at turn 7 while the yellow flags were displayed.”

“This is an infringement of Article 1.22.2 of the FIM Grand Prix World Championship Regulations. Due to factors related to race control at the time, including communication with race officials and review of various other incidents, this infraction could not be reviewed until well into the race, making it impossible to send a message to return the position before the end of the race.Therefore, in these specific circumstances and in accordance with Art’.1.22.2, it is A time penalty has been imposed which reflects the estimated time lost in restoring position if race management had been able to issue the message in time”.

“For the above reasons, the FIM MotoGP Commissioners Panel has imposed a penalty of one second which is added to the Sprint results of the Gran Premio Michelin de la Republica Argentina (in accordance with articles 3.2.1. and 3.3. 2.3)”.