Astounded by the way Honda ‘allowed’ the current situation in MotoGP to drag on for so long, Carlo Pernat admitted that he doesn’t understand how it was possible for this to happen without being foreseen, while also not forgetting everything he did for Marc Márquez, even going as far as to believe the rider should have ‘a major penalty’ for ending the contract in this way.
It’s October with a company that never spoke to the rider and instead kept talking about divorce… A company like Honda that was kept ‘in check’ until October leaves me perplexed. We are talking about the biggest brand that finds itself at the end of October without its ‘best’ rider under contract, the rider’s manager quoted by Motosan said, before going further and saying they should have penalized the rider:
– I managed companies like Aprilia and if I found myself in a similar situation, unless there was a consensual agreement, I would have forced the rider to pay a large compensation.
Pernat also recalled the time when Márquez couldn’t race due to his many injuries, also pointing fingers at those who oversaw his recovery: ‘But Márquez didn’t impress us much, especially after being paid regularly in recent years, despite hardly racing. Obviously, Márquez’s doctors also had some blame, as they made one wrong diagnosis after another’.
He added: ‘The weakness of the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer persists against the best rider: the manufacturer has the right and duty to protect themselves. Márquez naturally feels like the best and has the right to seek the best solutions… however, if, as it is said, the contract he is going to sign is only for one year, that is neither here nor there…’
