There was no mercy for the winner of the last race, the Portuguese Miguel Oliveira, who, in addition to suffering from the KTM’s lack of competitiveness on this circuit, which condemned him to drop to 21st on the grid after a disastrous Q1, received a double sanction by the Race Direction, which punished him with three positions at the start (it will be 24th and last) and, in addition, he will have to undertake a long lap (Long Lap) in the first stages of the test.
In a statement issued by the FIM, specifically the Race Directorate reports that “for making an illegal start in practice and being slow at the finish line in MotoGP Q1, he has been penalized three places on the grid start and a long lap penalty, which will be served during the MotoGP race at the Animoca Brands Grand Prix of Australia”.
According to the stewards, “he was observed doing a practice start at Turn 2 before taking the checkered flag and while the session was still active. While completing this lap he also disturbed the #23 driver (Enea Bastianini) at Turn 9 , circulating slowly along the racing line”, an action that, very possibly, closed Bastianini’s passage to Q2, since he finished 3rd of Q1 by 18 thousandths.
“He did a practice start during the last lap and this generated a yellow flag. It’s quite strange, because it’s not allowed to do something like that during practice. To top it off, when he started again he destroyed my lap,” Bastianini complained.
With this scenario, for Oliveira, who arrived in Australia after achieving a spectacular victory two weeks ago in Thailand in the rain, the options of achieving a good result this Sunday at the Australian Grand Prix have been formidable complicated.
