P150
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
N
ightmare came close
at Brno. Thanks to
excellently changeable
weather (always a bonus for
interesting results), there was a
flag-to-flag bike-change race.
In a nice wide pit lane, it should
have gone smoothly.
Until "The Maniac" arrived on
his Suzuki.
Iannone was within the pit-
lane speed limit but still looked
as if he was going to overshoot
his pit. He swerved in, hard on
the brakes. At the same mo-
ment, Aleix Espargaro was leav-
ing his pit, seemingly unsighted
in the confusion. The pair
touched, Iannone fell off, his
bike, slid into teammate Rins's
bike and knocked that over, too,
Suzuki teamsters scattering.
Mercifully nobody was hurt.
Espargaro's Aprilia crew was
blamed, probably correctly, for
an "unsafe release," and the
rider penalized by dropping
three positions. But a different
angle on the tangle far from ex-
onerated Iannone, whose self-
chosen "Maniac" nickname is all
too often justified by events.
But this was just one of sev-
eral shambles, and it all seems
rather unexpected at this level.
German GP runner up Jonas
THE PITS OF DESPAIR
AND HOW TO AVOID THEM
