The leathers bursting open exposing a man’s toned torso is more like the unbelievable plot of a risqué French film and not the unbelievable real-life actions of a risqué French rider in MotoGP. But on Sunday we witnessed a very brave yet French rider, Fabio Quartararararo, stripping down mid-race and riding bare-chested. Phwoar!
The incident seemed to stem from Yamaha rider dicking around with his zip just moments before the race started. This led to his leathers provocatively opening up in the final laps leaving him worryingly, but dashingly, exposed. Furthermore the mischievously descending zip also meant his chest protector was unsupported and flapping around like Gary Havelock’s nose in a strong cross-breeze. Fabio fixed this by hurling his chest protector off and slightly into the path of the on-coming riders.
Despite this epic safety worry Quartarararo was not given a black-flag by the race director who was said to have been too busy enjoying himself watching replays of Marquez falling off again.
But after the race sulking Spaniard Joan Mir ran straight to the Principle’s office crying to complain that Fabio should be penalised for his perilous actions and possibly his odour.
“You can’t go throwing stuff on the track – that wouldn’t be acceptable even for a world champion like myself” Mir explained “I believe Fabio should be a given some sort of hefty penalty – possibly deducted some points although that’s got nothing to do with him being in front of me in the standings. Although I am the world champion and would have been even if Marc hadn’t had been injured.”
In a bid to get Mir’s sulking face out of their office the Stewards Panel agreed to issue Quartararararo with a second three second penalty for his unsafe actions – to add to the first three second penalty he was given for not dropping back second after cutting the chicane. #Rules
Fabio, who’s French so easily offended by everything, was understandable easily offended by Mir’s meddling and issued a quality rant on social media:
So what do you think? Use the following insights and vote for what should have been the correct outcome.
Yes he should have been black-flagged
We’ve all seen the dim-witted hero riding their road bike at great speed in just their shorts and helmet. We’ve all commented that ‘let’s hope he doesn’t fall off as he’ll be sorry’ secretly hoping that he does just to teach him a lesson.
The truth is that if Quartararo would have fallen off on the tarmac at any speed he’d have ended up looking like an oriental dish of sweet and sour frogs legs. Not good TV or for the image of the sport.
No he shouldn’t
We rarely get to see a Frenchman being brave live on TV without the aid of a greenscreen so who are Dorna to stop that? Although he did break the regulation clearly stating that ‘technical clothing should always be worn correctly’.
But that’s hardly important given that time Capirossi rammed off that Japanese guy.