‘Jobsworth or just a rules figurehead?’
Race results reflect the order in which riders cross the line, no? Not in the current Moto3 class, where the FIM Stewards are engaged in an apparently endless war with riders, who selfishly keep on just trying to win races. At Assen, for a fifth race in a row, post-race penalties shuffled top positions. This after a race where other chances had been wrecked by an astonishing six ride-through punishments (a dangerous exercise in itself) and several long-lap penalties.
All imposed in the name of safety… though none of the offences bore any relation to the fatal accident earlier this season. The final results victim was Darryn Binder, dropped from a hard-earned fourth to seventh, for a couple of very minor runs over track limits on the final lap. To be fair, it’s arguable that one error may have gained him one position, though not the other.
Little runs over the kerb are common in hectic last-lap battles, and it’s very rare that places are gained. Yet the lose-one-place rule is utterly inflexible.
As with another recent rule that denies riders the chance to make their own judgement, when qualifying lap times are scrubbed if the rider passes a yellow flag, regardless of whether any danger is involved. This has ruined many riders’ qualifying tactics. Rules are rules, but when Freddie Spencer was appointed head of the new FIM Stewards Panel at the start of 2019, some thought he’d be the right man to apply considered judgement, to take matters case-by-case. Punishment is easier to accept when there is a reasoned argument behind it.
Not so. Whether Freddie is just a figurehead or just a jobsworth, the circumstances of any transgression are always ignored. It’s sobering to note that in 1983, had the same rules applied, Freddie would not have beaten Kenny Roberts to the 500cc World Championship title.
In Sweden, he ran Roberts off the track and strayed off limits himself. Under the current rules Freddie would have been put back from first place to second. And innocent victim Roberts would have won that year’s championship by one point, instead of losing it by two.
‘Freddie would have been put back to second’