Petronas SRT rider Fabio Quartararo says that a small error by Alex Rins caused him to close the throttle of his Yamaha too quickly, causing him to high-side and take out Andrea Dovizioso as a result.
Quartararo followed Rins through the first turn at Copse, but was caught out as the Spaniard's Suzuki lost traction and got into a small slide. While Rins was able to recover, Quartararo released the throttle as a response but was thrown into a high-side, going down as a result.
The approaching Ducati of Dovizioso had nowhere to go and clattered into the M1, going into the air as the bike effectively behaved as a ramp. Dovizioso landed heavily and had to be stretchered off the circuit while Quartararo was able to walk off under his own power, although the Italian was seen getting his breath back unaided moments later.
The pair were diagnosed with concussions in the hours following the crash however, and are now both in doubt for the next event at Misano in three weeks time.
"I lost rear grip behind Rins, he had a small slide and I closed the throttle a bit too aggressively to try and miss him, which caused me to have a high-side and then I went down," explained Quartararo.
"I’m OK but I just hope Dovizioso is, it wasn't intentional just a racing incident and my mistake took him out."
The Frenchman was looking to recover from a sub-par qualifying having been the pace-setter for most of the British weekend. He had topped both Friday practice sessions as well as FP3 on Saturday morning, before managing the second fastest time in FP4 just ahead of qualifying.
He could only muster up a relatively disappointing fourth on the grid though as he missed out on changing his front soft tyre due to technical issues with his machine, thus failing to improve his benchmark on his final qualifying effort.
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