Explained: MotoGP penalty rule changed - what does it mean for Marc Marquez?
In h🐻is absence due to injury, the wording of a double long lap penalty i✃ssued to Moto3 rider David Munoz has been significantly altered to avoid the type of confusion that surrounds Marquez.
The updated wording of the rule now reads: “The double long lap penalty🔴 shal🔴l be served by the rider at the next grand prix that the rider participates.”
The Repsol Ho🌊nda rider was hit with a double long lap penalty for crashing into Miguel Oliveira in Portimao, but at the time the rule stated♋ he must serve his punishment at the next race.
But Mar💦quez missed the next race in Argentina duꦕe to injury.
Hond𝔍a appealed the FIM MotoGP Stewards Panel’s attempts to𒆙 re-jig Marquez’s punishment, so that he must serve it whenever he returns from injury.
Honda’s argument is, esse🌟ntially, that a rule cannot be rewritten after an event to apply to an individual rider.
Marquez hopes to return at Jerez on April 28 but the MotoGP Court of Appeal has not yet delivered its final ruling 🤪on whether he must serve his double long lap penalty when he next competes, or whether t🐻he penalty has expired.
But, this past weekend at the Circuit of the Americas, it became clear that the FIM MotoGP Stewards have reworded the double long lap penalty rule to avoid a repeat of the controversy s🌌urrounding Marquez.
Moto3 rider Munoz will🎃 be the first rider♑ for whom the newly-worded rule applies.
Because it has been rewritten while Marquez’s appeal is pending, it rem🌃ains unknown wh🐬ether it will apply to him.
Spanish media expect Marquez’s 💜appeal to be successful.
AS reported tha𓄧t M🌊arquez repeatedly asked the Stewards if his penalty was only applicable for Argentina, and they repeatedly answered ‘yes’, before he agreed to sign the sanctioning papers.
Marquez then opted to undergo hand surgery for the injury sustained in hไis crash with Oliveira.
A final decision on his looming double long lap penalt🧸y is expected before the Spanish MotoGP, assum🧸ing he is fit to race.
Ja🅰meඣs was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
