However, some riders later questioned whether it was the right decision to go ahead with the third start.<\/p>\n
Ezpeleta acknowledged that such accidents are \u201cthe worst moments of this profession\u2026 a friend is hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Johann](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1316265_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Johann Zarco, 2026 Catalan MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
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\u201cWhen I saw the first images of Alex, I was very worried,\u201d Marca quotes Ezpeleta as telling the Valencia circuit\u2019s Curva 15 podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw Alex as soon as they took him to the circuit’s medical centre, and he was fine, conscious.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the same thing happened with Johann, also just bad luck, being caught in Bagnaia\u2019s bike.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"2026](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/gng_1316176_hires_1600x900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
2026 Catalan MotoGP.<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a0Gold and Goose<\/p>\n
Ezpeleta explained that while the instinct might be to call an end to the day\u2019s racing after such nasty incidents, \u201cif the track is good and the riders are okay, we have to keep racing.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThen there’s the fact that restarting or not restarting the race could benefit some and penalise others [in the world championship].<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, if the rules aren’t changed, we have to do what the rules allow. And there’s no rule that says you can’t have three starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m willing to study everything, but it shouldn’t be done in the heat of the moment<\/p>\n
\u201cAll factors need to be taken into account.”<\/p>\n
Alex Marquez will miss the next two rounds after suffering collarbone and back injuries, while Zarco will require surgery for extensive knee ligament damage.<\/p>\n
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Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MotoGP CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta has defended the decision to hold a third restart in Sunday\u2019s Catalunya MotoGP. Alex…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":687196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[8454,64,63,331011,15612,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-687195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-alex-marquez","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-circuit-de-catalunya","tag-johann-zarco","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687195","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=687195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/687195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=687195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=687195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=687195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}