The Moto2 Thai GP free practice witnessed a frightening crash, which Marc Márquez believes should result in penalties – and it did.
Tony Arbolino (Elf Marc VDS/Kalex) was stationary with problems at the entrance to the pit lane after a crash in turn 11, and Zonta van den Goorbergh (RW-Idrofoglia Racing GP/Kalex) came distracted and hit him violently. A track marshal who was on site was almost hit.
Both were reprimanded: Arbolino received a three-place grid penalty for not obeying the instruction to return to the pits via the service road after his crash; and van den Goorbergh received a pit lane start penalty for not respecting the yellow flag zone.
Marc Márquez, a Gresini MotoGP rider, was approached to comment on the incident, acknowledging that it is not the kind of situation anyone wants to have and that van den Goorbergh may not have been paying attention:
– Of course, nobody wants to do that kind of things, but it seems he lost a bit the concentration. It’s true that it’s super difficult to calculate, because on track you feel you are slow. And then, he arrived there, but he arrived super quick. It was an unlucky situation, but super dangerous.
That said, the Spaniard believes that the Dutch rider deserved the penalty: ‘Of course, it was not on purpose, but you need to penalize because this kind of contacts is super dangerous for himself, for the other rider, and for the marshal’.