“Unspoken rule” broken amid Moto3 controversy: “Dirty, disgusting, unsporting”
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The manner of Jaume Masia’s Moto3 championship win has been lambasted.
Masia twice raised eyebrows with unpunished manoeuvres up the inside of Ayumi Sasaki, who entered the race with his own title hopes on the line.
Masia's Leopard Honda team-mate Adrian Fernandez then created even more controversy by seemingly looking over his shoulder to locate Sasaki before riding particularly aggressively against him.
“Jaume, both of his moves were over the line, for me,” TNT Sports’ Neil Hodgson reacted.
“There should have been a penalty.
“The problem was his teammate. An absolute nuisance.
“Obviously his teammate has nothing to lose, and he basically runs into the side of Sasaki.
“He’s trying to do a favour for his teammate.
“The last corner of the last lap, he pushes him wide and costs him two places.
“If that hadn’t have happened, we’d be going to Valencia with the championship still alive.
“It’s an unspoken rule - you don’t do that. You never get involved in somebody else’s world championship fight.
“It’s huge, it’s a really big thing that he did. It’s dirty, it’s disgusting, it’s so unsporting.
“The team [should say] ‘we don’t want to win like that, we want to win with pride’.
“It left a sour taste in all of our mouths. Jaume has had a fantastic season and you wanted him to win in the correct manner.”
Masia appeared unapologetic after his race win which delivered the championship, a week before the season-finale in Qatar.
He admitted to not caring about receiving a note on his dashboard about his conduct during the race.