Miguel Oliveira was involved in one of the somewhat controversial moments of the Sprint race of the Italian MotoGP Grand Prix. On the second lap, he tried to overtake Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) in search of 15th place, but the maneuver resulted in a touch that caused both to crash and retire.
The Trackhouse Racing driver explained to the press: ‘I went to space, but it was a shame. I hit Fabio. I didn’t want that to happen, first of all. But it was already a consequence of starting very poorly – I couldn’t deactivate my device on the way to turn 1, so until turn 6 I was losing positions and having everyone riding behind me. The first time I really managed to put together my lap, I started looking for opportunities to overtake, but I couldn’t make it happen on the way to turn 10, so it was a shame for that. We will try again tomorrow‘.
When asked if he addressed Quartararo about what happened, Oliveira shared some more details regarding his opinion about the incident: ‘I immediately apologized to him because I tried to overtake him, he saw me very late and lifted the bike to try to avoid me, but we still collided and of course it’s regrettable when you take someone out of the race. But I was trying to overtake, I didn’t launch myself from 15 meters before and hit him‘.
In the Portuguese’s view, this may have been an incident on the verge of being penalized: ‘I think it was probably a decision on the edge between penalizing and not penalizing. But I was trying to overtake, and if you can overtake and are penalized for it, then it will be difficult to do it‘.
