Miguel Oliveira’s race at the Indonesian MotoGP Grand Prix was compromised by a touch from Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM) while he was in eighth place. The CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP Team rider went off track after the contact and dropped down in the standings, only managing to recover to 12th. Meanwhile, the South African rider was penalized for the second time in the race.
The Portuguese rider stated that, without the incident, he could have finished in the top ten: ‘Anyway, in the race I made the wrong choice of rear tire, but I still think I could have had a top ten result. I only had a little help from Brad to go off track, but that’s it. I think he was penalized for it’.
Despite believing that the rules were followed, Oliveira suggested a penalty system similar to the double yellow card in soccer: ‘I believe that the FIM commissioners followed the protocol surely, but I think that if you have the same penalty twice during the race, you should have slightly stronger penalties, because somehow it works. It would be like the second yellow card in a soccer game: you get a red and you’re out. There is probably something that can be improved in the protocol. Anyway, it shouldn’t happen during the race to receive a penalty for making a maneuver like that, but in extreme cases like on Sunday in Indonesia it might not be a bad idea to think about this‘.
