MotoGP chief defends officiating of Catalan GP

MotoGP’s chief sporting officer Carlos Ezpeleta believes the race direction made the “correct” decision in restarting the Catalan Grand Prix twice - but is open to discussions over any potential safety improvements. 

Several MotoGP riders questioned the call to continue racing in Barcelona following two major incidents that left Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco hospitalised, and some others caught up in flying debris.

After the first stoppage caused by Marquez trying to avoid Pedro Acosta’s slowing KTM on the run to Turn 10, the race had to be red-flagged again when Zarco’s leg got trapped in Francesco Bagnaia’s Ducati at Turn 1.

The race was restarted, which meant riders had to again negotiate the tricky opening corner after the launch sequence. The final 12-lap dash, however, passed without further major incidents.

Ezpeleta expressed his relief that both Marquez and Zarco escaped even more serious injuries, but dismissed suggestions that the Barcelona circuit is unsafe or that the race should have been curtailed.

“First, I want to say how fortunate we've been on Sunday. Of course, Alex and Zarco have major injuries, but it didn't get worse,” he told Motorsport.com in an exclusive interview.

“The Alex and Pedro incident is very sort of isolated, it can always happen. It’s stuff that can happen in racing, but it's not sort of the normality, and there's not really a safe concern with the track there. 

Carlos Ezpeleta, Dorna Sports

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images

“All the straights in the calendar of any circuit are similar to that. It’s important that KTM, together with the championship, is investigating everything that happened to Pedro's bike.

"Afterwards, the race direction decided to restart the race, which is normal. Then, unfortunately, we had another crash which can happen again in a race start, but again we were very, very unlucky with the dynamic of that crash, and the result of Zarco in his body, in the position and everything.

"So, again, according to the rules and according to everything, I think race direction and the FIM took all the correct decisions.

“Having said that, we have to debrief with the teams and the riders to see if there's anything that we can improve for the future in any type of way, because for us, safety is really important."

In both cases, ambulances were quickly dispatched to the scene, and Marquez and Zarco were declared conscious by the medical crew before being transported to the hospital for medical checks. The two riders have since returned home to continue their recovery.

Ezpeleta said resuming the race was standard practice as both riders were conscious and not in critical condition.

“Of course, both riders were sort of out of critical condition, were conscious, so you would normally start the race under those conditions, no?," he added.

"Both accidents were very, very graphic and a really shocking image, and that's what probably started the conversation, but in the normality, the normal thing is to proceed with the race."