A rumour has been going around in the paddock about Alex Marquez’s telemetry data during the infamous crash at MotorLand Aragon, which was later confirmed when even Francesco Bagnaia mentioned it in the apology for using strong words after the crash. But what has been said and what is the truth?
Bagnaia stated after the crash:
“I was in front, completely. Already before changing direction. So, what is making me more angry is looking at the data. Because as soon as I entered Turn 10, I was in front, leaving space, because I knew that he was there, but I was with much more speed. So, I didn’t need to close the line to be in front.
As soon I did it, as soon as I entered Turn 10, I heard his engine opening the throttle, opening gas. This is bad. And then the thing that is even worse is the fact that he remained from 40 to 60% of throttle until he crashed.
So, it’s very dangerous to have someone that does things like this because normally you try to avoid contact. You don’t want to have contact with anyone. And from the data, from what happened, someone is not of the same idea.”
Sadly, the telemetry data can’t be published but the Ducati teams are arranged in a way that they share all of their data amongst all the satellite and the factory team, so Bagnaia could analyse Alex’s telemetry. If you watch back the crash, you can see that while Bagnaia was fully slipped out, Marquez was almost upright and still had deathgrips on the handlebars. This could have caused the throttle being pulled. The upright position can be traced back to the first point of contact between the riders which was Bagnaia’s backside pushing Alex’s front wheel, this could result in the Gresini bike tipping back to the upright position and then proceeding this direction, crashing in the opposite side of the factory counterpart, trapping Bagnaia under.
The truth is in my opinion it is impossible that Alex clashed with Pecco on purpose, however this doesn’t mean that he is not at fault here. His excuse was also pretty sloppy, saying that he didn’t see Pecco. He could and should have been penalized for this. If you think about it Bagnaia was penalized for going too slow at Mugello couple of weeks ago. I thought that was a weak call from the FIM, but if that deserved a penalty (of 3 places on the starting grid) how in the hell this didn’t.
PS: I wanted to analyse telemetry data from the MotoGP, but sadly after digging for a while I couldn’t find any on the internet. If you have a website, video, or raw data, I would really appreciate if you could share with me. Thank you.
BME Veloce Corse 