KTM’s Pedro Acosta claims that Fabio Quartaro “destroys” the Motogp Hungarian Grand Prix Sprint, saying it’s “hard to understand” how it caused the collision in Turn 1.
The factory Yamaha riders started from sixth on the grid, attempting to raise the inside of several riders to a tight turn 1 at Balaton Park.
However, he was slammed into the back of Ena Bastianini’s Tech3 KTM, while Aprilia’s Marco Betzecchi and Pedro Acosta were widely evicted by evasion and loss of position.
Fabio Quartarraro was given a long lap penalty to serve at the Hungarian Ligue Rampuri on Sunday.
However, he doesn’t believe he’s “over the limits” and notices that he’s been caught up in how dirty the track is on the inner line.
“I put the brakes on late, I don’t think I was above the limit,” he told the official MotoGP website.
“But it was a bit dirty, so of course some riders closed the line – that’s normal.
“I had to release the brakes completely, and I attacked Enea. These things could happen.”
Bastianini was dumped behind the field and also damaged his real-ride height device, leading to a collision with Johann Zarco on the first lap.
He has a double long lap penalty to serve at the Grand Prix as a result.
“Yeah, not my expectations, because I first got off to a very good start at KTM,” he said.
“We did a lot this weekend to improve our start.
“And I was in the second position, but Fabio made a mistake, struck me not only on the bike but also on the back, losing a lot of positions.”
The target taker and the Quartaro
Acosta is sure Cartararo deserves a penalty and could not understand how he caused the incident in the first place.
“We got off to a good start, put on a good brake for Turn 1, then Fabio came and destroyed Betzecchi, Bastianini and my race races more or less,” said Acosta, who crashed in a sprint during Battle Jorge Martin.
“For this, it’s what it is. It’s true that qualifications made everything worse, but honestly, it was very difficult to understand how Fabio grew.
“For this reason, it’s a tricky point and I hope everyone is more calm tomorrow. Let’s see what’s going on.
“He’s been riding it all weekend. He knows exactly what the first corner looks like.”
Not critical of Quartarraro in order
Aprilia’s Betzecchi said he was able to avoid the worse consequences of Quartarraro’s clash with Bastianini, and accepted that it could happen in the race.
“That can happen in any race, especially on a very tight track with the first corner,” the Italian noted.
“For me, especially, I had (Fabio) Di Giannantonio and Digia closed the doors. Digia had already lifted the bike when he saw Quartararro, so I touched me a little.
“So, fortunately, I was able to lift my bike and let Fabio go, but Bastianini was there.
“When I got older, I was given to a lot of people and it was difficult to get back to position again. But this is a race so I’ll try again tomorrow.”
Franco Morbidelli, who was third in the sprint, added: “It’s really hard to put the brakes right and it’s really easy to make mistakes with these types of braking. That’s what happened. Luckily, I was able to avoid everything.”