Legendary champion Freddie Spencer’s new role as chairman of the new FIM Stewards Panel, formed to relieve race direction of having to police race offences, got off to a shaky start at round two in Argentina, when he was comprehensively slammed by a furious Cal Crutchlow, insisting his punishment for a jump start had been grotesquely unfair.
The 2018 race winner had qualified on the second row of the grid and had his eye on a second successive podium finish – only to have his chances wrecked when he was ordered to serve a ride-through penalty.
Crutchlow set second-fastest lap as he charged through from last to 13th place, then stormed straight to race direction to complain.
Later, before everyone had the chance to see a video in which his bike had moved forward minutely, clearly gaining no advantage, he explained it had been when he had moved his balance onto his toes.
Crutchlow singled Spencer out for criticism in a voluble debrief session, adding that he didn’t think Marquez, Rossi or Dovizioso would have been punished in the same way.
The Riders’ Safety Commission had asked for somebody that understood racing, he said, to show “discretion and understanding of the rules, and what is unfairly gaining and what is not.”
He felt Spencer should have understood that no advantage had been gained. “I’m not saying give me the benefit of the doubt, because I did nothing wrong.” When other riders could see the video at the next Safety Commission meeting, they would laugh, “and they will lose respect for him as well”.
Crutchlow concluded that Spencer had said nothing in response to his complaint. “He just stood there with his arms folded.”
Team owner Lucio Cecchinello added his condemnation. “The penalty was tremendously hard, and his movement at the start was irrelevant, really irrelevant … 1,5 or two centimetres. At the next committee meeting we will put forward our opinion that the penalty for this kind of infringement is far too hard. There is no relation between the potential gain of a couple of centimetres compared with the 30-second penalty of a ride-through.”
“Fast Freddie” Spencer won three World Championships in a short but stellar career in the early 1980s, becoming the only rider to win 250 and 500 titles in the same year.
By Michael Scott
Photos GnG
