MotoGP: Espargaró puts blame for Lorenzo crash on Iannone

Pol Espargaró has put the blame for Sunday’s collision between Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Iannone firmly on the Italian, after witnessing the impact from the perfect location right behind them.

Sitting behind them when the two collided, the Spaniard says it’s clear who was at fault even though both riders’ telemetry showed both riders entered the corner at the same speed as the preceding laps.

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“For sure, it’s same as the cars when you are driving on the street. The one who is behind is always at fault. Iannone brakes in the same places, and he was braking really late during the entire race. There, I don’t know why but he struggle a little bit on brakes and he was going a little bit wide all the laps there.

“When you are behind you have to be careful and you have to pay attention. We were catching Jorge and he was not normal. So we have to understand that Jorge had some problems. So you have to arrive there, check what’s happening, and then overtake.”

It was a successful day for Espargaró at the race only metres from his childhood home, however, taking another strong top five finish despite struggling with the death of Luis Salom on Friday.

“Even though I am really pleased with my performance today, I have to say that it was a hard weekend and the race was especially challenging but my main target was to finish the GP for Luis so I put in 200% effort and achieved it.

“Looking back on the weekend, I have to say that I believe it was the right choice to continue the event. In our sport we showed that we are a big family, and even if all of us didn’t know Luis, we gave our respect to him, with the three best riders in the race demonstrating this by putting on the memorial shirts as well as all the riders running Luis’ number.”