Another "gray area": the Acosta case in Catalunya reignites the debate over the regulations

Massimo Rivola and Andrea Dovizioso comment on Acosta’s restart after the red flag, calling for a regulatory clarification.

We can say that this MotoGP season is revealing several gray areas in the regulations. Not the first ever, but clear enough to warrant reflection. After Marc Marquez’s “shortcut” at Jerez with a resulting new rule, Pedro Acosta’s restart after Alex Marquez’s very serious crash in Catalunya has come under the spotlight. An incident unintentionally triggered by #37—indeed, it was a sudden technical issue with his KTM—but doubts remain. Massimo Rivola was the first to speak about it, echoed by Andrea Dovizioso, who also called for clarity on the matter. Will there be changes starting from the next GP, as happened for the Spanish GP?

Massimo Rivola preferred not to comment too much on the Aprilia clash, the one between Jorge Martin and Raul Fernandez, dismissing it with, “It’s ugly when the Aprilias take each other out” and as an internal matter to be resolved. But he did share his view on Pedro Acosta’s restart after the first stoppage. “I believe that a rider who, for one reason or another, even if it’s not his fault like a technical problem, causes a red flag… The fact that he restarts and can fight for the race… I’m sorry about what happened with Ogura afterward, but these are things we need to review,” he told Sky Sport MotoGP. So would he not have allowed Acosta to restart? “I’m putting a topic on the table. In effect he caused a red flag; in a normal race it would have been a race over. I have nothing against Pedro, but we should review some things.”

He’s not the only one talking about it; an unquestionably expert former MotoGP rider is weighing in too. “The regulations need a bit of revisiting”: on his podcast 04recap, Andrea Dovizioso discussed what we saw last Sunday. Acosta had a technical problem and, even if there isn’t 100% confirmation from KTM, it seems the same issue was reported by Binder, Bastianini, and Vinales in that very GP… “If you even cause a red flag, as in this case, because of the incident with Alex, but you have a technical problem, and you manage to make it back to the pits… In my opinion, there should be a rule that you can’t change bikes. You broke the bike, and if you hadn’t been hit, you would’ve retired.”