Just moments before the red flag was shown due to adverse conditions, Miguel Oliveira entered the pits to withdraw from the MotoGP Japanese GP due to lack of visibility caused by problems with his helmet. He was still classified in 18th place, but if he hadn’t entered the pits, the result could have been much more promising.
When the race was about to resume, #88 was authorized to start, but from the pit lane, explaining to SportTV that it was a mistake by the CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team:
What happened was that I entered – we know that 99 percent of the time when we enter the box in the middle of the race we will retire, but fortunately the race direction quickly realized after my retirement that the conditions were too dangerous to race. And simply the team quickly put the bike inside the box and we know that if we want to resume the race the team cannot put the bike inside the box. That part is something the team learned – they already knew beforehand from the regulations, but learned in that sense. And obviously after resuming the race I had to resume the race in last place and then leave the pitlane, which did not happen because on the formation lap the conditions became very similar to before the race was declared finished.
