Fabio Quartararo sounds the alarm after the first sprint race: “It’s dangerous! »

A voice was raised on Saturday evening to denounce the dangerousness of Sprint races. And this voice is not just any voice since it is that of the 2021 World Champion fabio quartararo. If the fans seem to have appreciated the show given the audiences and the first comments, it is certain that the dangerousness of the format cannot leave anyone indifferent.

The short event was won by reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) after a splendid fight with Jack Miller (KTM) and Jorge Martin (Ducati-Gresini). Unfortunately, it was also marked by the violent collision between Luca Marini (Ducati-VR46) and Enea Bastianini (Ducati) which sent the latter to hospital with a fractured collarbone.

A caper that takes Bastianini to the hospital © MotoGP

Himself hit at the start of the event by Joan Mir, the Frenchman did not mince his words in front of the press as soon as the event was over. “ I do not like it at all, announced the Frenchman. Today there is only Marini et bastianini who have fallen, but in the future there will be many more falls", he warned.

The Frenchman points out the format which, according to him, pushes pilots to much more violent driving. “It’s dangerous but if we’re not aggressive, we lose places, analyzed Quartararo, we are not in cars where it is much safer and where contact is less problematic”, he also warned.

Indeed, with 2 drivers, Pol Espargaro and Enea Bastiani, in hospital and Brad Biner badly damaged, more than 10% of the field is already affected. But if we analyze the progress of the day, the Sprint race was not marked by more falls than the tests. On the other hand, the bikes exploded the track record by almost 2 seconds, which is simply astonishing. However, these are changes to the 2022 machines, but a lot of development work, particularly aero, has been carried out by all the teams. Should we therefore curb these diabolical machines? Ask the driver for their opinion, they will always want more power and downforce. And why deprive them of these devices that they are fond of and which allow them, among other things, to seat the motorcycle during the propulsion phases and place them on the front wheel at the start? Moreover, yesterday we saw Ducati, KTM, Honda and Aprilia fighting for victory, a balance which proves the correctness of the regulations. 

42 starts during the year and as many risks of collisions at each corner © MotoGP

We come back again and again to the problem of behavior on the track. Fabio Quartararo draws a bitter but lucid observation on these points: “ I don't want to complain, but it's a safety issue. It's not a problem to make contact. In the last laps, with Alex Marquez, we touched each other three or four times, but it doesn't matter, it's the race. On the other hand, in the first laps, it got crazy. For riders, basically it's normal, but we are on motorcycles which sometimes react in such a way that we cannot control them.

The only certainty is that these marvelous madmen will have to adapt their behavior to this new format which is in keeping with the times. After a few races it will be time to take stock and possibly adapt the format... or delete it.

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