Race Direction once again came under the scrutiny on Saturday’s MotoGP Japanese Grand Prix. What caused discussion was what happened in qualifying, when Marc Marquez had a lap canceled that would have earned him pole position and the new Motegi track record.
The Gresini Racing driver did not contest the fact that he had crossed the green, violating the track limits, because the television images amply demonstrated this, but that it took a long time to receive the notification. Which prevented him from trying to make another attempt to improve what by then had become ninth on the grid.
“I didn’t go because the tour was cancelled, because it’s clear that I went on the green, but because it took them so long to tell us, without giving me the chance to make another attempt”, said Marc when he met the journalists at the end of the day.
“We showed that we were fast in qualifying, but I touched the green and the notification arrived very late. They told me there was a notification problem, I don’t know if it was with the wifi (laughs). Once the time was done I didn’t want to risk it, because the conditions were treacherous, but if I had known beforehand that they had canceled that lap, I would have tried to do another one to try to get further ahead on the grid.”
Mike Webb, Race Director
Photo credit: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The nine-time world champion’s reconstruction also led race director Mike Webb to publicly explain what happened, underlining that there was an anomaly in the automatic system that had never occurred before.
“The track limits sensor was activated immediately and this leads to the automatic cancellation of any lap. The MotoGP stewards immediately entered the data into the system, but unfortunately an anomaly in the software interrupted this process and meant that the ride were to be manually canceled, causing a delay in notification,” Webb’s note explains.
“This is the first time this has happened in thousands of track limit violations investigated each season. The cause of this incident has been identified and the system has been changed to ensure it does not happen again.”
“The stewards investigated a delay in requesting the track limit regarding the #93, Marc Marquez. The problem was determined to be due to a software anomaly and the lap was therefore manually canceled,” the communication concludes.
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