Marquez and Pedrosa summoned to race direction in Sepang

Marc Marquez and Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa have been summoned to a hearing into the pair’s incident at last week’s race at MotorLand Aragón where Pedrosa high-sided out of second position on the sixth lap after a traction control cable failed at the Spaniard’s rear wheel. It was later confirmed by Repsol Honda that the slightest of touches from Marquez as he ran in too hot behind Pedrosa caused the failure.

While Marquez went on to take the sixth win of his rookie MotoGP season, Pedrosa was taken to the medical center but no serious injuries were detected. The questions immediately began to be asked on whether Marquez had caused the crash and a short time later it was confirmed. Marquez was quick to apologize on live television while a media frenzy started to surround the incident.

A statement from Race Direction confirming there will be a full hearing into the incident reads, “Race Direction has confirmed that on the Thursday of the Shell Advance Malaysian Motorcycle Grand Prix a hearing will take place involving Marc Marquez, Dani Pedrosa and representatives of Repsol Honda Team in order to technically analyze events which took place in last Sunday’s Gran Premio Iveco de Aragón.

Meanwhile, Dorna Sports representative of FIM Race Direction, Javier Alonso spoke about the incident today and gave his thoughts on what he thinks the outcome may be. Speaking to www.motogp.com he said, “This was a very peculiar incident with a very technical element to it. In fact, when we first saw it live we did not think anything had happened, as such; although it appeared as though Marc Marquez had touched Dani Pedrosa, we did not believe that there was any connection between the contact and the subsequent crash for Pedrosa.

After the race, we knew that there had been a technical problem and that a cut cable had been the most likely cause of Pedrosa’s traction control failure, which in-turn caused his retirement. That is when we decided to launch an investigation. However, we need to gather an amount of technical data and for this reason we chose to delay the hearing until Malaysia." Alonso added.