Franco Morbidelli slams Aleix Espargaro after "unfair" Silverstone MotoGP crash

In the opening lap of MotoGP’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Aleix Espargaro and Franco Morbidelli came together in an incident that led Espargaro to retire from the GP. Time has done little to cool tempers, and Morbidelli says he “could’ve been much harsher” in his criticism of the Honda rider.

It happened early, during the first lap of the initial start, when the Italian and the Spaniard found themselves toward the back of the pack after Morbidelli botched his getaway from tenth on the grid.

There, the Honda test rider lost control of his prototype and ended up colliding with the VR46 rider. Fortunately for Morbidelli, oil that spilled from his own Ducati led the marshals to wave the red flag and this allowed him to hop onto his second bike and rejoin the British GP.

A fourth-place finish for Morbidelli brought some consolation but did little to erase what had happened with Espargaro – whom Morbidelli even accused of having something personal against him.

The Catalan rider responded directly in a social media post, using sarcasm to make it clear that, obviously, crashing and taking Morbidelli out had not been part of his plan. 

Aleix Espargaro, HRC Test Team

Photo by: Honda Racing

In Aragon, ten days after that heated exchange, the Italian didn’t backtrack and instead doubled down on his stance. Morbidelli argued that, in his view, the incident exposed the poor conduct of the Spanish rider.

“I hate hearing that I was being harsh, because I could’ve been much harsher. The time that’s passed hasn’t changed my perspective one bit,” Morbidelli said, before detailing the reasons why, in his opinion, the older Espargaró brother should rethink how he approaches race weekends now that he is no longer a full-time rider.

“What happened to me on Sunday at Silverstone was unfair. That’s not how a test rider should behave when racing against someone who’s fighting for important points. That’s regardless of whether Aleix made a mistake — which he did,” Morbidelli added.

“That mistake says a lot. First, it means a test rider isn’t fulfilling his main role: gathering data for the factory. Even more so if, like in his case, he spends the whole weekend riding two seconds off the pace, only to crash on the first lap.

“And I had to pay the price for all that with a fractured foot. That’s why I could’ve gone much harder on him. But I simply said it seems like he’s got something against me—because we’ve had our clashes in the past.” 
Despite the incident, which fractured the talus bone in his left foot, Morbidelli hailed his "amazing" recovery in the race.

The Italian fought back to finish fourth on the road and, in the final laps of the race, even battled fiercely with championship leader Marc Marquez. The Spaniard ultimately came out on top and took the final podium spot.

“If I try to see the bright side of what happened, it’s also true that I had a terrible start, which put me in that situation – and that led to the red flag, which in turn allowed me to restart with my second bike and finish fourth,” Morbidelli said.

“I don’t know if, starting that far back, I would’ve been able to run that kind of race.”