Pecco Bagnaia had every reason to be furious. The Italian rider missed out on a direct spot in Q2 after his fastest lap was annulled due to a yellow flag error. That chrono would have granted him ninth place, saving him the stress of fighting for a good time in Q1 to aspire to the pole position at the Thailand Grand Prix.
Logically, Bagnaia was irritated, and even the race direction admitted their mistake in canceling his lap. A yellow flag in turn 3 caused the chaos that harmed Bagnaia, who was not at fault when expressing his monumental anger towards the judges. “They removed the yellow flag from turn 8 to 3 without any reason. Race direction has admitted their mistake in canceling my best time, but I haven’t wanted to return the favor,” he emphasized, hiding none of his gigantic disgust.
Bagnaia had a few words with Morbidelli on the track, but he really had nothing to claim against his compatriot. “With Franky, it only happened that he and a few other riders were much slower. It was total chaos in the last 15 minutes of the session. I’m more angry with race direction than what happened to Morbidelli, because they made a huge mistake. Then they admitted to me that they were right, that they made a mistake, but that they couldn’t return my lap because ‘that’s just how it is’.” Bagnaia believes these types of incidents are more a matter of race direction than of Simon Craffar, the new director of the Commissioner Panel. “In my opinion, it’s not correct, and the other riders also think the same, because we were talking about it until five minutes ago in the Safety Commission. It’s not the first time we don’t agree with the decision,” he added.
Bagnaia concluded, “If a rider falls, I accept it. In Barcelona, I lost a pole for this, because I didn’t see the yellow flags and my lap was canceled. I accepted it. But not today.”
They admit that they were wrong, but …
It’s rare to see judges admit they were wrong. Mike Webb launched a statement acknowledging the mistake. “Race direction has determined that the yellow flag was erroneously shown in the lap that was annulled to Bagnaia. This was due to a human error. We regret this unfortunate situation and the impact it had on Pecco’s weekend,” he argued.
Finally, the race director explained that the regulation prevents returning the best lap, although it’s known that there was flagrant negligence. “When a rider passes with the yellow flag deployed, his lap is automatically canceled. This affected several riders today, but, unfortunately, it was about the fastest lap of Bagnaia’s session. The laps are canceled due to the passage under the yellow flag, not necessarily because a rider crosses a sector where a fall has occurred. We cannot reverse the cancellation of a lap if a rider has seen a yellow flag. But we can, and we do, apologize to Bagnaia and the Ducati team for the human error,” he said.