Andrea Dovizioso believes the media “went in the wrong way” with its coverage of Romano Fenati's incident with Stefano Manzi during and after the San Marino MotoGP weekend.
Fenati grabbed Manzi's brake lever as an act of retaliation for an earlier collision during the Misano Moto2 race, for which Fenati was handed a two-race ban and lost both his current Marinelli Snipers seat and his 2019 deal with Forward Racing MV Agusta.
The incident drew worldwide media attention, with Ducati's Dovizioso believing it was “too much”, while he felt the response on social media created a “really bad situation” as it allowed people to voice an opinion without understanding “the reality” of the situation.
“He needed a strong penalty,” Dovizioso said of Fenati.
“Also because he did already some things in the past, and this is really bad. If you already make something bad in the past and the penalty wasn't big enough and he didn't understand, and he did something very bad [again], the penalty has to be very strong.
“But the media spoke too much about that and they went in the wrong way because they spoke about stupid things and not about racing.
“The social media created a really bad situation, I think the social media most times created a really bad answer, and I hate the people speaking because they are able to do something and maybe don't understand the reality.
“I don't like that situation and the way the media managed that.”
Honda's Marc Marquez echoed Dovizioso's comments, while admitting the media reaction was “too much” for Fenati, citing one instance where the incident was reported as if “he killed someone”.
“I mean, the action was hard, was enough to have a strong penalty,” Marquez said.
“I mean, what I believe was two races [ban] was not enough, but I am not agree with what was created with the media.
“I was on the news in Spain and was speaking about him every day too much. In the past and not many years ago, already happen [incidents like] this, two or three years ago happen with different riders, five years ago happen different things, but also one rider crash and the other stay on the track.
“It's something that must be a hard penalty, but the media thing was too much for him.
“I mean, one time it looked like he killed someone. Of course was a strong move, but was not like this.”
Fenati issued an apology a day after the incident, though LCR's Cal Crutchlow – who said Fenati should never be allowed to race again – saw this as a “sob story”, and feels what the Italian did “was the limit”.
“I didn't change my mind [about Fenati]. Even though he pulled a sob story, he apologised and now everybody has to feel sorry for him.
“But I don't believe it, he's done it many strange things. Sure, I am no angel on the track and some other riders are no angels, but for me this was the limit. So I don't change my mind at all.”
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