Lorenzo: Last on grid for Iannone 'not enough'

"If Race Direction don't give him a hard penalty, like they did with me in 2005, these kinds of riders don't understand that they have to change" - Jorge Lorenzo.
Lorenzo: Last on grid for Iannone 'not enough'

Jorge Lorenzo was amazed when Andrea Iannone asked 'if I had an engine failure or something strange' after ramming into the back of the Yamaha rider in Sunday's Catalunya MotoGP.

Lorenzo also hit out at Race Direction for not imposing a harsher punishment on the Ducati rider, who will start from last place at the forthcoming Assen round.

The accident occurred as the pair were fighting for fifth place on lap 17 of 25. Click here for more pictures of the incident. Earlier this year Iannone collided with his own team-mate, Andrea Dovizioso, bringing them both down in Argentina.

"First of all, as I said yesterday, everything is secondary after what happened on Friday [to Luis Salom]," Lorenzo said. "But about the race, it's unbelievable that Iannone made this mistake again and when he did, instead of saying 'sorry' he asked me if I had an engine failure or something strange happening in this corner.


"I thought it was his fault, but he had this reaction and didn't say sorry.

"There is always one rider that doesn't understand the risks and that his actions can seriously injure the other riders and if Race Direction don't give him a hard penalisation, like they did with me [race ban] in 2005, these kinds of riders don't understand that they have to change their mentality.

"That's why I think starting the race from last position is not enough, because in five to seven laps he will be positioned at the front again due to his pace."

Lorenzo led the early part of the race before struggling with tyre graining and has now lost the world championship lead to Marc Marquez, by ten points.

Yamaha team director Massimo Meregalli declared: "I believe Iannone has no excuses and, because it's not the first time he causes such an accident, I expected the Race Direction to be more strict with him, as this incident could seriously compromise Jorge's chances to fight for the title."

Lorenzo will replace Iannone at the factory Ducati team next season.

Someone in the comments section has suggested that Lorenzo's quotes were edited to 'paint him as the bad guy'. In fact the quotes are exactly as provided by Yamaha in their official press release:

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