Angry Biaggi slams Monza penalty
Added on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 by Carole Nash Editor
Angry Biaggi slams Monza penalty
Max Biaggi has express his anger at being hit with a 20-second penalty in race one of Sunday’s World Superbike Championship round in Monza.
The Aprilia rider was hit with a 20-second sanction just seconds before he was about to set foot on the podium for cutting the Rettifilo chicane during the day’s opening race, pushing him from third to a lowly 11th position in the final classification and formed part of what was an eventful weekend
The Rettifilo chicane, recently remodelled to meet Formula One requirements, played a major role in the weekend’s talking points with race two of the weekend being red-flagged after a matter of seconds due to a multi-bike accident.
British rider Shane Byrne was also caught out at the same point during the restarted race two but Biaggi has since come out to criticise race stewards for his penalty, claiming that the shortcut made no difference to the overall race result.
“I’m very angry,” he said. “But I respect who take this decision, even if I not agree with it. I would have understood it if I had taken the lead at that point, but the times clearly show that I was running a half second slower during that lap.
“It was exactly in that same point where last year Smrz ran straight ahead, hit me and broke my pinkie finger and the fifth metacarpal in my left hand, and no one did anything about it. I didn’t even want to race in the second heat, but then my good sense took over and I got onto the track anyway, despite all the controversy.
“Race two wasn’t going too badly, I had a good rhythm going and was catching up to the second group, but then I made an error and lost ground.”
Even team-mate Shinya Nakano voiced his support for his team-mate following the decision.
Honestly, I’m amazed at the decision they made about Max. I saw a lot of riders that were with me cut the chicane each time, but no one else was penalised.”
