Most of paddock pretty well voiced their opinions on Marco Simoncelli’s overtaking move on Dani Pedrosa yesterday at Le Mans, which cost the Spaniard a broken collarbone and none the least Alberto Puig.
The manager summed it up with “the real problem is this guy (Simoncelli), who is ignorant and doesn’t understand anything,” which sounds pretty harsh, but pretty justifiable considering Puig groomed Pedrosa to be a World Champion all through his career, but even Simoncelli’s own personal manager Carlo Pernat didn’t go easy on his own client.
Pernat talking during the post race show on Italia 1 declared that Simoncelli should have been black flagged for the manouver, and could have just waited for a more suitable point and he would have easily overtaken a fading and slower Pedrosa.
And Simoncelli still considers that his ride-through penalty was due to all the previous controversy started by Jorge Lorenzo and obviously his team manager Fausto Gresini agrees with him.
“I am unhappy about what happened, because a result that was within my reach was denied and above all because of the fact that Pedrosa is hurt,” said Simoncelli.
“In my opinion the incident went like this: Pedrosa was having a bit of difficulty -I had pulled alongside him and passed him on the previous three laps.
When he passed me back I was not intentionally trying to resist, and my telemetry shows that I got on the brakes at the same point as on previous laps.
I think that he had hit the brakes well before the corner, and I found myself on the outside of him and in front on the entry to the corner.
I didn’t want to back off, so I left him with a metre between myself and the kerb in order to go in.
I saw that it was tight, so I tried to adjust my position.
That was when he touched my back wheel and went down.
I repeat that I am unhappy about it, and I want to avoid any controversy regarding penalisation, but I believe that my ride through was a result of all the talk over the past few days.
Now I have to focus on Barcelona.
” Fausto Gresini said, “I believe in the good intentions of our riders.
This was a racing incident that could happen at any time, and in which Marco had passed Pedrosa.
I think he was not responsible for causing the accident.
We are obviously very displeased, above all with the fact that Dani is injured.
It wasn’t intentional, and I think that all the controversy beforehand has fanned the flames of an unpleasant situation.
Marco really deserved a podium and second place.
Unfortunately, for various reasons it didn’t happen, but we will make that our goal for Barcelona.
Aoyama did well and continues to pick up points and make progress.
” Even Hiroshi Aoyama who finished in 8th, got to talk about his race, albeit it’s about two dozen words and seems more like an afterthought by the Gresini Honda press office:“I am fairly satisfied, because I was feeling good on the bike.
Despite this, the lap times were slightly slower than we were expecting.
I have taken more points in the standings, and I am confident about Barcelona.
”