Alex Rins gives Indonesia MotoGP marshal middle finger in heated exchange
Alex Rins appears to have been caught in a heated exchange with a marshal in Indonesia
Yamaha MotoGP rider Alex Rins has been captured giving a marshal the middle finger in a heated exchange on Friday at the Indonesian Grand Prix.
The multiple MotoGP race winner suffered a crash towards the end of Friday afternoon’s Practice session at the Mandalika circuit.
Under MotoGP’s new rules, if your bike’s engine stops in a crash, you cannot restart it from the side of the track and must go to an escape road.
As there was only two minutes to go, Rins had no time to get his bike restarted off the circuit and rejoin the session.
Rins caught in heated exchange with a marshal
A clip posted on social media by an Indonesian motorcycle influencer, @_dewinv, shows Rins on the back of a marshal’s scooter being taken back to the paddock.
He then appears to be stopped by two other marshals, with a heated exchange following, with the marshal on the scooter seemingly protesting against his colleagues.
Rins climbs off the scooter and throws up a middle finger in the direction of the group, before getting a lift from a photographer.
It’s not clear why Rins was initially stopped from returning to the paddock.
Rins did not speak about the incident during his media debrief after the session.
Crash has reached out to Yamaha for comment on the video.
Rins could face a penalty
The incident was not mentioned in the end-of-day FIM stewards’ notes as having been a topic of investigation.
It’s unclear if the stewards were aware of the incident.
But abuse of marshals is something not taken lightly by the stewards.
Earlier this year, Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi was suspended from the Czech Grand Prix after he struck a marshal in the gravel trap following a crash in the sprint.
In 2025, Rins’ Yamaha team-mate Fabio Quartararo was hit with a fine and a 10-minute suspension from FP1 at Silverstone after abusing a marshal at the French Grand Prix.
Quartararo did something similar a few weeks earlier at the Spanish Grand Prix, though he was given a verbal warning for this.
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