MotoGP World Championship riders recently got a set of new rules and fines for hand gestures on track, which governs them all like a bunch of middle schoolers with access to adult TV and money. As Honda rider Cal Crutchlow said, “You’re not allowed to stick fingers up, wanker signs, nothing.” Terrible.
The new rules came in an email to riders between the San Marino and Aragon events, Crutchlow told Racer. A fan of the “little bit of spice” that throwing up fingers and offensive sexual gestures add, Crutchlow said he was disappointed with the change and joked that the fines would send him bankrupt.
Here’s the rest of what Crutchlow had to say on the move, from Racer:
“At the end of the day, it’s what you feel at the time. It’s no different to live TV [commentators] saying it, is it? I like it.”
The LCR Honda rider conceded he could understand the move to a point, noting “we don’t want to bring a load of bad stuff into the sport.”
The rules came after an exchange between Valentino Rossi and Aleix Espargaro during practice for the San Marino event, in which Racer reports that Rossi said Espargaro was more in the wrong. Still, Racer reports that Rossi agreed with Crutchlow about keeping “bad stuff” out of the sport. From Racer:
“Espagaro did a big mistake because he stayed on the line,” [Rossi] said. “When I was running into him he said to me, ‘F*** you!’ My mistake is that I do like this [raises middle finger], but apart from that I was right 100 percent.
“When I do this [repeats gesture] maybe I exaggerate a little bit, so it’s right you can’t do like this. But from the other side, when one rider is on the track he has to keep attention to the other one; if not, it’s not fair, and it’s a lot worse [than hand gestures].”
The fines only come when riders are on track, for now. Sounds like Rossi read into the details on that one.