After the premature interruption of the Moto2 World Championship race in Australia, there was still some uncertainty about whether the MotoGP sprint race would take place. The decision was made to cancel it due to strong winds.
Mike Webb, director of MotoGP race, explained that the riders were consulted before the decision, as were the team principals: ‘We had a meeting with all the team principals shortly before we made the decision, with all the team principals. Loris [Capirossi, safety advisor] and Carlos [Ezpeleta, Dorna’s sporting director] talked to the riders, and Tomé [Alfonso, FIM safety delegate] talked to the MotoGP riders in their garages to get their first-hand opinions. As you can imagine, there is a wide range of opinions from the riders, depending on who they are, their own circumstances, whatever it may be… so a wide range’.
According to the British, trying to start the race with worse conditions than those that were present when the Moto2 race was interrupted was not on the table: ‘So, we spoke to the teams to say: “These are our options, this is the situation as it stands right now”. But to even start again, to even do a reconnaissance lap and try to hold a race when the weather condition is significantly worse than it was when we showed the red flag… Sorry, it’s not an option, we couldn’t do it’.
