{"id":627698,"date":"2026-04-24T10:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T10:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627698\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T10:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T10:48:09","slug":"moto2-team-critical-of-rival-penalty-after-unacceptable-line-was-crossed-in-cota-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627698\/","title":{"rendered":"Moto2 team critical of rival penalty after ‘unacceptable line was crossed’ in COTA crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MSi Racing Team has released a statement describing the penalty handed to Alberto Fernandez following the opening-lap pile-up at COTA as insufficient.<\/p>\n

MSi rider Angel Piqueras suffered the most serious injuries in the seven-rider incident, after Fernandez lost control under braking for Turn 11.<\/p>\n

Piqueras required surgery for a fractured femur and ankle, and also sustained rib fractures, a pulmonary contusion and a torn anterior cruciate ligament.<\/p>\n

The FIM MotoGP Stewards held a hearing with Fernandez on Thursday at the Spanish Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

The BLU CRU Pramac Yamaha rider was found guilty of \u201criding in an irresponsible manner causing a crash\u201d and handed a pit lane start.<\/p>\n

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The penalty statement outlined the reasoning as follows:<\/p>\n

Penalty Explanation
“Following the Penalty Protocols issued to teams, this action was deemed to be an incident of Type M2-CC5: START OF THE RACE \/ OPENING LAP. Actions that create a dangerous situation for multiple riders, not in control and\/or causing a crash. As a first offence for the season, the appropriate penalty in this case is a Pit Lane Start.”<\/p>\n

\" <\/p>\n

Angel Piqueras, Moto2 Race, Grand Prix of the Americas, 29 March 2026<\/p>\n

\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n

MSi: Alberto Ferr\u00e1ndez ‘clearly reckless’<\/p>\n

MSi responded with a strongly worded statement, translated below, calling for tougher sanctions:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MSi Racing Team would like to express our dissatisfaction with the sanction imposed following what happened at the Austin GP.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe manoeuvre carried out by Alberto Ferr\u00e1ndez was clearly reckless and caused a very serious accident that left our rider, \u00c1ngel Piqueras, with multiple injuries, which have already been reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand that crashes and incidents are part of this sport, but we believe that in this case, an unacceptable line was crossed in terms of risk and safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe penalty applied seems insufficient to us in relation to the dangerousness of the action.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe firmly believe that decisions of this kind should not set a precedent or give rise to interpretations that could diminish the seriousness of behaviours that put riders\u2019 integrity at risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, we call for greater firmness in handling these types of situations, in defence of safety, respect on track, and the responsibility that competition demands.”<\/p>\n

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Filip Salac, David Alonso, Collin Veijer, Daniel Munoz and Sergio Garcia were also caught up in the crash.<\/p>\n

Miraculously, most walked away with only Ferrandez, Piqueras and Garcia unable to make the subsequent restart.<\/p>\n

There is currently no confirmed timeline for Piqueras\u2019 return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MSi Racing Team has released a statement describing the penalty handed to Alberto Fernandez following the opening-lap…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,129598,22787,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-627698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-circuit-of-the-americas","tag-moto2","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}