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The spoilers? Banned. If you cross the red line coming out of the corner you lose your time!
We were anxiously awaiting the latest pointless decision from FIM and it has arrived, in the form of an E-mail addressed to all the riders: from the Aragón Grand Prix, rude gestures have been banned under penalty of a monetary sanction.
It would seem that everything started with the altercation between Valentino Rossi and Aleix Espargarò at Misano: a misunderstanding between the two, seasoned by an 'F-bomb' (did they read his lips from inside his helmet?) dropped by Aleix and a 'middle finger' by Rossi.
"We are no longer allowed to make rude gestures - revealed Cal Crutchlow, and with his usual humour he added - I'll risk going bankrupt!"
In Cal’s opinion, this is a bad decision.
"It adds spice to the races. I had great fun when Casey Stoner gave Randy De Puniet a smack on the head at Le Mans. And Fenati who kicked a rival, making his bike switch off when they were stopped? There is nothing wrong with that behaviour. To the contrary, it is part of our sport."
Crutchlow then continued to explain the enormous advantage of the motorbike rider’s visibility compared with, for example, F1 drivers, hidden in the cockpit.
"The reason fans watch bike racing is that they want to see the best riders in the world on the best bikes acting like human beings. If you take that away, you change everyone into robots and take away the personality of racing."
Indeed, if you think about the altercation between Rossi and Biaggi at Suzuka in 2001: Max extended his elbow to protect against Vale’s pass going into the straight. The rider from Pesaro then responded, overtaking him at the end of the straight. That pass was nothing exceptional, but what made it legendary was Rossi holding his middle finger up in the air!
