This Portuguese Moto2 Grand Prix, which closed a colorful fifth meeting of the season, will be remembered and not necessarily for the better. We even heard the word "scandal" often repeated, once the race was restarted after having relieved the unfortunates and freed the machines, suggesting a plot, a hold-up, with some even convincing themselves that the windfall had was seized by VR46 whose boss was there to take the prize. But there was nothing illegal or premeditated for obscure projects. After the collective accident noted and the subsequent accidents regretted, everything was done according to the rules. Which does not prevent us from asking another question: were they avoidable?
This Moto2 racing on a track of Portimao which did not really get wet ended up giving the final blow to the 11 leading men who discovered, obviously first, that the conditions were no longer viable for riding on slicks. There was no real downpour so the race management in front of its 25 screens studied the times of each lap to assess the relevance of stopping everything and bringing everyone back to equip themselves with rain tires.
It turns out that this decision never came, the collective fall responsible for bringing out a red flag that some observers on site swear would have deserved to be presented two laps before the cataclysm. At this stage of reflection, we must remember that before, drivers judged the conditions and raised their arm to alert the race management that they would be well advised to stop the costs.
A gesture which is not prohibited but it has become obsolete while the issues and morals have changed... Thus, television rights are sensitive and, having a career today means rolling, achieving results, costs what does it cost. None of the 11 unfortunate people made the slightest movement to warn that the limit had been reached.
Moto2 Portugal: the rules are the rules
For the rest, once the damage was done, the regulatory procedure mercilessly got underway: the drivers had to return their motorcycles to the pit lane within five minutes of the accident without taking all the shortcuts on the track. Then a short grid and start procedure took place for a 7 lap race. All this is planned and falls within the framework of the television broadcast. But in Moto2, as in Moto3, for economic reasons, there is only one motorcycle. And many had been far too damaged to return to combat. Which gave us the outcome that we know, right up to the checkered flag…
Canet, Beaubier, Ogura, Fernandez, Arbolino, Chantra, Lowes, Arenas, Acosta, van den Goorbergh and Corsi like Ramirez saw this from afar, and the first city to lose big in the championship is perhaps not finished with his misfortunes since he broke a radius and a finger. He will have to be operated on in Barcelona… Now, a reflection has been launched for the future in order to avoid reliving this type of event. But the room for maneuver is more than limited. This promises to be more difficult than the ban handed down in record time by Ducati's FRHD... But one thing is certain: the long-time Race Director Mike Webb, the two former world champions Franco Uncini et Loris Capirossi, also empowered to make decisions, were not in the pay of anyone in Portugal.
