Fenati gets two-race suspension, Crutchlow calls for lifetime ban

Romano Fenati has been handed a two-race ban following his incident with Stefano Manzi during the Moto2 race at Misano where he grabbed his rival's brake lever.

Having previously clashed on track, when contact from Manzi forcing both riders to run-off, Fenati later leant over and squeezed Manzi's front brake lever as he pulled alongside at Turn 7, sending the Forward rider into a scary high-speed wobble.

Fenati gets two-race suspension, Crutchlow calls for lifetime ban

Romano Fenati has been handed a two-race ban following his incident with Stefano Manzi during the Moto2 race at Misano where he grabbed his rival's brake lever.

Having previously clashed on track, when contact from Manzi forcing both riders to run-off, Fenati later leant over and squeezed Manzi's front brake lever as he pulled alongside at Turn 7, sending the Forward rider into a scary high-speed wobble.

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Fenati was shown a black flag and disqualified for irresponsible riding and, following a review of the incident, has been banned for two races meaning he will miss the Aragon and Thailand rounds.

Manzi (who later crashed out on his own) received a six-place grid penalty for the earlier clash with Fenati.

Before the two-race ban was confirmed all three MotoGP podium finishers were asked about Fenati's incident, which led to Cal Crutchlow calling for a lifetime ban for the Italian rider.

“I think he should never race a motorcycle again,” Crutchlow said. “He should have walked back to the garage and his team should have just kicked him straight out the back.

“You can’t do this to another motorcycle racer. We are risking our lives enough and if somebody grabs your brake – sure maybe there was contact before, but there is contact all the time. This is racing. To grab the brake lever on the straight - he deserves to be kicked straight out.”

Marquez also feels the penalty which would be handed to Fenati needed to be a strong deterrent to other riders to avoid a similar incident in the future.

“It is race direction who must decide and they need to understand the full situation,” Marquez said. “They need to put some penalty that the other guys will never do because if you take a strong penalty then it will be a penalty that says ‘hey if you do this you will not race’.”

“I think what he did is very bad and the black flag is normal,” Dovizioso added. “But in any case you cannot do that.”

Fenati, who was kicked out of the VR46 academy for behaviour issues, has previous incidents to his name. At the 2015 Argentina round, Fenati was given three penalty points for kicking Niklas Ajo and switching off his bike at the end of the warm-up session.

The 2017 Moto3 world championship runner-up is set to switch to Manzi’s current Forward Racing team next season as it begins its MV Agusta partnership in Moto2.

Click Here to read a statement from Fenati's Marinelli Snipers Team, following the Manzi incident.

 

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