Check out the video of Gresini Honda rider Alex DeAngelis binning his bike on the first corner of lap one at Misano taking out Colin Edwards and Nicky Hayden.
Both Americans were not happy and we hadn’t seen Nicky Hayden this upset since Dani Pedrosa crashed into him at Estoril in 2006.
Hayden vented his anger on the Sammarinese rider had to be stopped by a marshal, while Edwards was quoted as saying when asked what had happened, said ‘I have no idea but it’ll be the usual thing, a dumb-ass Italian at the Italian GP.
’Here’s the usual PR statements when the riders were slightly calmer.
Colin Edwards:“I thought I had the pace to easily be fourth and maybe fight with Pedrosa for a podium but we are in Italy and occasionally you have to deal with an Italian rider who wants to be a hero and today that was De Angelis.
Turn one at the start with seventeen bikes is not the place to be going at race pace and he was never going to make through there.
Today De Angelis is the guy who needed to be wearing Valentino’s donkey helmet.
I didn’t know what happened until I was sliding through the gravel.
Turn one is the most dangerous time to crash with so many bikes around you, it is unacceptable.
I’ve been fighting with Dovizioso in the championship most of the season and now he has ten points on me with four races to go.
That’s racing.
”Nicky Hayden:“It’s easy to say it now but I just know I was set for a good race today so I’m extremely disappointed.
Maybe I wasn’t going to win the race but I at least could have run with the front guys for a while and given all the Ducatisti to cheer for, as well as picking up some vital experience and data for this machine and having some fun myself! To be honest I had a feeling De Angelis might create some drama here.
He’s at home and fighting for his job and when I saw him in the corner of my eye I just tried to gas it and get out of his way.
Unfortunately he slightly clipped my rear wheel and that was the last I knew about it.
I know in racing people can make mistakes and I have done plenty in my life but I’m not happy with Alex because this wasn’t racing – it was just stupid to try and pull a move like that on cold tyres, in the second corner on the first lap.
Anyway, we’re all okay and looking forward to Portugal.
”Alex De Angelis, went on TV to publicly apologise to both Edwards and Hayden for the incident.
“I got a decent start and thought I could make some more ground up on the inside in the second turn but I went in too deep,” said the San Carlo Honda Gresini rider, who is currently without a 2010 ride.
“Colin cut in front of me and I braked as hard as I could to avoid him but the front folded and I hit him.
Unfortunately Nicky was hit as well and I apologise to both of them.
Unfortunately these things happen in racing and I am desperately disappointed because this is my home race, there were a lot of people here supporting me and I wasn’t able to deliver a good result.
It is especially frustrating because we had the potential to put a really good race together here after another excellent weekend but we’ll take the positives out of it and try to continue with our recent progress at Estoril.
”