The San Carlo Honda Gresini rider gives his reaction to a move on Dani Pedrosa during the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France, which resulted in a ride through penalty for the Italian.

Sunday’s Monster Energy Grand Prix de France at Le Mans produced a thrilling race, but also included an incident which added controversy to proceedings at Round 4 of the 2011 MotoGP World Championship.

An overtaking manoeuvre from Marco Simoncelli on Dani Pedrosa at the Chemin aux boeufs corner resulted in a crash for the Repsol Honda rider, and he was later diagnosed with a broken right collarbone. Simoncelli was penalised for the incident with a ride through penalty, and ended the race in fifth position.


“Pedrosa tried to overtake me on the straight,” explained the Italian. “When we were braking I did it normally, like in the other laps, but I was faster than him so I tried to overtake him round the outside and when I was a little bit in front of him I started to take the corner. I tried to leave him space to make his own corner.”

“I saw in the video that his bike was hopping a little bit and he lost the line, he touched me, when I saw he couldn’t make the corner I picked the bike up but it was too late. He touched me on the back and he crashed.”

“I am so sorry about his crash and about his injury, especially. For me I haven’t done anything incorrect, so for me this is a race ‘action’ (incident).”

Simoncelli concluded: “For me the punishment from Race Direction was because of all the controversy of the last few days, and from Estoril. For me if the same thing happened without me they would penalise nobody. This is my point of view.”

The rider’s Team Manager, Fausto Gresini, commented: “We can only accept the punishment and Race Direction have only done their job. We are very sorry about the incident. Marco tried to have his race but unfortunately contact happens and we are very sorry about what happened.”

“Of course all riders want to get their results without harming other riders. Now it’s time to stop with all the controversy so that the season can continue and the show can improve.”

Gresini added: “Marco is still confused and very sorry about what happened. It’s a racing incident, there is contact that results in nothing and there are occasions when it produces unsavoury consequences. Marco is an athlete and is very sad about what has happened to Dani.”