MOTORCYCLE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP – WEEKEND IN DIFFICULTY FOR ANDREA MANTOVANI IN ASSEN
The fifth round of the MotoE Grand Prix took place at the Assen TT circuit “the University of Mo-torcycles” for our Andrea Mantovani riding the Ducati V12L of the Klint Forward Garage Team. Free practice immediately went well, Andrea managed to enter directly into Q2 with the seventh fastest time overall. During Q2 on Friday afternoon Andrea crashed, most likely caused by the cooling of the tires due to the traffic and the myelin created during the shift between the drivers.
Having started P10 in race 1, a contact with another driver at the second corner put Andrea out of contention, but he nevertheless continued the race and took the checkered flag in 14th posi-tion. But the Race Direction, in addition to not taking the finish into account, sanctioned Andrea with 2 long lap penalties to be served in the following race 2.
A measure that does not take into account the real dynamics of the facts on the one hand and that of the Race Direction on the other is abnormal, both because the contact with the pilot in front of Andrea was inevitable given that he had to suddenly cut the track to the right to avoid the maneuver danger from another driver ahead of him, impacting the front end of our no. 9, and because in a race of only 7 laps inflicting 2 long lap penalties means taking away any hope of a result from the person who suffers them. In race 2 Andrea obviously served the penalty imposed, crossing the finish line 14th. It would certainly have been a WE with very good results without the contact in race 1. This howe-ver did not discourage the Team and Andrea ready for the next challenge next WE at Sachsering in Germany.
