Bad boy is back
Fenati fastest in test as he bids to save career
Romano Fenati has stayed in control of the final pre-season test at the Losail circuit, topping nearly every session from team-mate Tony Arbolino and setting the majority of lap times on his own. In what is the beginning of a year of redemption for the brake-grabbing Italian, he’s going into the 2019 Moto3 season well aware that this is his last chance at a future in Grand Prix racing.
Fenati was initially banned from racing for a year after the high-profile incident at Misano last September where he grabbed the front brake lever of fellow Italian Stefano Manzi in retaliation for being pushed wide during the Moto2 race. Immediately losing his 2019 Moto2 ride (as Manzi’s teammate) and being handed a ban by organisers, the punishment was later relaxed to allow him to compete this season. Clearly struggling with anger management issues with the Manzi incident only one in a series that also saw him dropped from Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Academy, the 23-year-old looks unlikely to receive another warning before he is out permanently.
Fenati was a changed man in the Losail paddock, electing to keep as low a profile as possible and spending most of his time on track alone and out of the way of his rivals. And while he might have been in the wrong, it hasn’t been an easy journey back to racing for Fenati either. Battered by an avalanche of hatred in the aftermath of the incident, Fenati has revealed that at the height of the drama he was receiving death threats.
He said: “I was at race direction with Manzi after the race and everything seemed OK. We explained and shook hands, I apologised, and I got a two-race ban. But all the rest came as a domino effect from social media. Social media issued a judgement much faster than the normal courts and sentenced me without appeal. They’d already built the coffin for me.”
And with Fenati now seemingly on the road to redemption, his biggest challenge will come on Sunday when he lines up on the grid for the first time. Strong in testing, he’s happy now that he can convert that into race pace and get his career back on track. “I’m happy with what we’ve done. It’s too early to say if I can fight for the title, but for sure I can fight for the race in Qatar. It’s difficult to say what’ll happen, but we can be in the fight.”