Dani Pedrosa: ‘You can’t leave the door open to anybody’

Dani Pedrosa has given his impressions of the last corner collision between Repsol Honda teammate Marc Marquez and reigning world champion Jorge Lorenzo in Jerez last weekend.

Pedrosa took his first win of the season in Jerez with an impressive ride in front of a massive crowd of 111.000 fans, but he was oblivious to the drama unfolding behind him between Marquez and Lorenzo at the final corner.

After attacking Lorenzo at Turn 6 on the final lap, Marquez ran wide and Lorenzo wrongly assumed he had enough of an advantage not ride defensively at the final corner.

That was a mistake he has since acknowledged as Marquez pounced with a daring pass on the brakes at the final corner.

Marquez collided with Lorenzo and he took the second place that means he now leads the world championship standings heading to the fourth round in Le Mans next weekend.

Unaware of what had happened behind him, Pedrosa couldn’t make any comment on the incident in the immediate aftermath of the race that showed Marquez has no intention of taming his aggressive style in MotoGP.

So when asked by MCN during Monday’s post race session what he had thought having had the opportunity to view TV replays, Pedrosa said: “I think Marc was a little bit too late and Jorge was too innocent because he left the door open. Of course I can understand why Jorge was upset because you don’t like this, especially because you lose a position and you can crash. But you can’t leave this door open to anybody like Valentino (Rossi), Jorge and Marc because they will take it.”

Nobody condemned Marquez for overstepping the limit on Sunday and while most said his pass was hard and aggressive, it was clear that Lorenzo had not done enough to protect his second place on the approach to the final corner.

Even Lorenzo admitted he had been punished for thinking Marquez was too far back to attack afte his mistake at Turn 6.

Rossi said: “It was a hard attack and a hard overtake by Marc because he touched Jorge but it is the last corner on the last lap so the guy behind will try something. Jorge kept the door open and Marc went inside so it can happen in racing.

American Nicky Hayden told MCN: “It was a very aggressive move and he hit him pretty hard but there was some room there and it was the last lap and the last corner so I can understand why Lorenzo is mad and I can understand why Marquez went for it because there was definitely some points there. It was a hard move but nothing that went over the line.”

For more paddock reaction from Cal Crutchlow Bradley Smith, Jerry Burgess, Davide Brivio, Livio Suppo, Wilco Zeelenberg, Herve Poncharal, Lin Jarvis and Race Director Mike Webb, see the May 8 issue of MCN.