Andrea Dovizioso believes both Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa should take the blame for the collision that took all three riders out of the MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix.
Dovizioso, Lorenzo and Pedrosa were debating second when they collided with each other at the right-hander of Dry Sac with eight laps remaining.
The incident was triggered by a late lunge from Dovizioso on his Ducati team-mate, who cut back over to defend the inside line when he hit Pedrosa, which caused all three to go down.
Race Direction deemed the clash a racing incident but Dovizioso thinks the two “on the limit” Spaniards were to blame, and also feels Lorenzo's reluctance to use detailed pit board signals contributed to the incident, as he was not warned Pedrosa was part of the group.
Dovizioso, who now sits 24 points off of the championship lead, said: “I was unlucky. I braked very late, I was a little bit long and both [riders] did a mistake, I think.
“Dani was the rider behind, so he can manage better the situation and he didn't, because he entered too fast, and I think this happened to Jorge and Dani because they were too on the limit and they had to do something in the battle and they both made a mistake.
“Jorge, I think, also did a small mistake because he didn't really care about the inside line because he was a little bit out of the line.
“It's true from the helmet it's impossible to see outside, but you have to take care and he didn't. But this happened because in the pit board they didn't say to him we were three riders.
“But this [decision] is from the rider, the rider decides what he wanta on the pit board and he didn't want [that information], and I think that is a mistake and this is the reason why it happened today.”
Lorenzo and Pedrosa avoided pointing fingers, with the former expressing his surprise that the “most clean” riders in MotoGP were involved in such an incident.
“Well, I know it's the most shocking thing that happened in the race, but I don't want to value this so much because was clearly bad luck for the three riders,” said Lorenzo.
“We understand that we are the three most clean riders in the championship, and today we've been very unlucky, the three of us.
“I don't want to say 'it is your fault' because we are always very clean, so it's [a case of some] very bad luck, especially for Andrea and Ducati because they are fighting for the championship. This is why I'm disappointed.”
Pedrosa added: “So I was just waiting there every lap, trying to see if at the end of the race, with the better tyres, I could make some better pace, and also [I was] waiting if they made a mistake.
“But, finally, they do a couple of mistakes, I tried to benefit but in the last action they both went wide and I go in, and the next thing I know [I had] a big hit with Jorge.
“Unfortunately this ended up with the crash of all three [of us]. It's also quite strange because especially Dovi, Lorenzo and I are not riders who have this style of riding.”
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