In an interview with Italian news station Radio 24, Giacomo Agostini has spoken about what happened between Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez during the Argentinian GP – and he reckons that ‘Marquez is not aiming at riders legs’.
The moment everyone is talking about from #ArgentinaGP 💢@marcmarquez93 and @ValeYellow46 CLASH!
Relive the #TermasClash ➡️ https://t.co/uxrqBB0MdH pic.twitter.com/1F01kUpn05
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— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) April 9, 2018
Following on from Valentino Rossi’s accusation that Marc Marquez is deliberately crashing into riders, Giacamo Agostini has been speaking to Radio 24 – and the iconic Italian racer has a very different perspective. He said:
“In Formula 1 it is the same, they push themselves, they throw themselves out, and they hit each other. Of course we try not to exaggerate – Marquez was wrong and he apologised, so let’s hope he does not do it anymore.
Disqualification? Why for Marquez, and not for the others who cause clashes during races? I think he must not be disqualified. He was already punished yesterday in the race, with a penalty. If we disqualify each time, then we won’t be able to race anymore, all the riders will be at home.
You cannot truly calculate overtaking, it’s difficult. And this applies to everyone: I think of Iannone who threw Dovizioso down two years ago. Sure, he was disqualified, but no one is talking about it anymore.
It is not true as Rossi says that Marquez is aiming at riders legs. What happened yesterday between Marquez and Rossi has happened to everyone, it happened to me, it happened to Valentino Rossi, and it happened in the same race to Dani Pedrosa, courtesy of Johann Zarco.
I remember that when I was racing, especially in England, where I was just braking, four of them went, one on top of one below, one on the right, one on the left. It’s always been a fight like that, of course it’s always fair to have respect, it’s always right to not throw people to the ground.
These fights should be avoided, but we cannot erase them – otherwise we’ll have to leave home half of the racers in MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3. We want the riders to push themselves, we want competition.”
What do you reckon? Is Agostini right? Are clashes like this simply a part of the highest level of motorcycle racing? Or is Rossi right to label Marquez ‘dangerous’?
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