‘My 100% is slower than Pedro’ - Franco Morbidelli responds to Germany MotoGP penalty

Franco Morbidelli insists he was “flat out” when he was penalised for impeding Pedro Acosta in MotoGP German Grand Prix practice, and that his “100% is slower than Pedro’s”.

The VR46 Ducati rider has been handed a three-place grid penalty for Sunday’s German Grand Prix after he was found to have impeded Pedro Acosta during Friday afternoon’s Practice.

The incident happened at Turn 7 when Franco Morbidelli was on an out-lap, and he appears to check up going into the corner.

This forces Acosta to abandon his flying lap.

“I was doing my job”

But Morbidelli insists he was pushing to fully at that moment, though this was clearly “slower” than what Acosta was able to do.

“Yeah, 39 minutes from the end,” he said when asked about the incident.

“I was coming out from the pit box, and I was pushing, I was doing my job.

“And my 100% is slower than Pedro's. You know Pedro is unbelievably fast. So, my 100% in that out lap was slower than Pedro.

“And for some reason… I mean, I impeded him. But I can assure you that I was pushing 100%.

“Because I was in sector two, coming out from the pit box. But if you check out my lap charts, they are spot on.

“I'm pushing every lap, and I'm doing the maximum that I can in every lap.

“So I came out from the pit box, and I was pushing flat out. And he was coming faster than me. And I got penalised for that.”

It is Morbidelli’s second impeding penalty in as many rounds, following a similar incident with Enea Bastianini at Assen.

“You can slow down if somebody is coming,” he added when asked if tyre warm-up was a consideration.

“But the fact is that I was pushing flat out. And he was coming hotter. Probably in that run, he was faster than me.

“But what do you want me to say? I was pushing flat out. I mean, something that's impeding is probably when we're cruising around.

“That was the case in Assen, and I made a mistake. I was frustrated, and I was too frustrated with my lap.

“And I had an episode like that in the previous lap with another rider. So I was really angry, and in that lap, I slowed down and didn't give a damn about what was happening.

“And actually, Enea was coming hot, and I made a mistake, and that wasn't me. But this time, I was pushing flat out.”