Colin Edwards: Simoncelli overtake was 'wrong'

American Colin Edwards reckons Marco Simoncelli’s controversial Le Mans overtake that left Dani Pedrosa injured was too aggressive.

Simoncelli and Pedrosa were battling for second place on lap 18 of the French MotoGP race when a collision left the Spaniard with a broken right collarbone. The Repsol Honda rider underwent surgery last week and is facing a fitness battle to be ready to return to action for his home race in Barcelona on June 5.

Simoncelli has come in for scathing criticism for his aggressive tactics in recent weeks and the Le Mans incident will only put the hard riding Italian further under the microscope in the future.

And the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team rider Edwards told MCN: “You just can’t do that. If somebody rolls up the inside of you and has a wheel on you at this level, you know 100 per cent that if you let off the brake and turn in front of them that they are going to hit you. I’m a lot smarter than that because I’m not going to put myself in a position where somebody is going to take me out and send my ass sliding down the track. I don’t want to taste the ground just because I tried to prove a point. Trying to go round the outside of somebody and you pinch them off, there’s generally going to be some contact.”

Edwards though agrees with former factory Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi in saying that Simoncelli’s reputation might have influenced the decision to penalise him with a ride through penalty.

He added: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody get a ride through for dirty riding during the race. His reputation though precedes him. I’ve never had a problem with Marco and I actually feel quite comfortable riding with him. I’ve no animosity towards him but at the end of the day he was wrong and it was not a cool deal.”