Safety concerns prompted red flag in Americas GP

The controversial red flag ahead of the Americas MotoGP race was thrown for safety reasons, which prompted the complete restart.

After rain fell shortly before the race start, the red flag shown by race direction just before the warm-up lap, moments after polesitter Marc Marquez abandoned his bike on the grid set up for wet running to switch to his dry bike in the pitlane.

Upon seeing Marc Marquez leave his position and his bike, nine other riders followed him, creating a mess, with people running up and down the pitlane in complete confusion.

Autosport understands this chaos caused significant tension and disagreements within race direction, ultimately leading to a red flag on safety reasons that nullified everything that had happened up to that point, including any possible penalties for those responsible for the confusion.

“We requested a delay and then a quick restart procedure due to safety concerns. Given the number of riders, bikes, and personnel in the pitlane, it was impossible to begin the warm-up lap,” said race director Mike Webb.

“Restarting was the safest way to respond to an unprecedented situation. We will analyse the circumstances with the teams and review the rules.”

Race start

Photo by: MotoGP

The person most relieved by the decision was Marquez, who executed his strategy and avoided any penalty, but not through his initial intention: “I tried to get others to follow me, and it worked. I knew that if more than 10 riders copied me, the start would be aborted. And that’s exactly what happened,” the Catalan rider stated, but only 10 riders opted to swap bikes rather than the rules requiring more than 10 riders to trigger a full race restart.

In reality, Marquez and his team slightly misinterpreted the situation.

The relevant regulation in the sporting rulebook is Article 1.18.7, which concerns starting procedures just before the warm-up lap when riders leave the grid "for weather-related reasons".

“Riders who change tyres for weather-related reasons at this moment […] will start the warm-up lap from the pitlane, take their qualifying position on the grid, and must serve a ‘ride through’ penalty when indicated by race direction (usually within the first three laps of the race),” state the regulation.

This rule change was implemented to prevent those who initially chose the correct tyres from being disadvantaged, and is different from a regulation about riders leaving the grid, revised after the weather-affected 2024 race in Japan.

In Austin, those riders initially on dry tyres were Enea Bastianini, Brad Binder, and Ai Ogura.

Thus, Marquez and the rest who left the grid should have been penalised with a ride through, but the red flag that was shown by race direction on safety grounds nullified what happened up to that moment and forced a new start procedure.