Inside Motorsports Vol.1 - March | Page 7

WHO’S FAULT WAS THE ROSSI-WICKENS COLLISION? THE RACE DECIDING COME TOGETHER During the last stages of the 110 lap St. Petersburg GP, 3 drivers had chance to win: Wickens, who had the Lead for most of the race, Rossi at 2nd place and Bourdais at 3rd. After the race restarted at Lap 107, Wickens tried to play a trick to have a good restart: he slowed down on the exit of last corner, but his trick fired back, since Rossi was far away from him and with Wickens’ slow down, Rossi got closer than ever before, and it was clear he will go for it! Indeed he tried to go inside at T1, but lost a lot of grip and slide straight into Wickens, who spun and hit the wall. None of them made any mistakes nor illegal moves: Wickens gave enough space for Rossi and Rossi’s attempt was absolutely ok. While it would be easy to blame Rossi for the collision, if You ask Me, it was a normal racing accident, no need for penalties. A penalty for a collision like this would be really counterproductive, it would message “Don’t even try to pass if You are not 110% sure about the outcome”. In other words: try only the trivial and nothing else… 7