The MotoGP Court of Appeals has rejected the protest laid down by four teams against the aerodynamic device used by Ducati in Qatar GP.
Following the enthralling battle in Qatar GP between Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso and Honda’ Marc Marquez in which the Italian came out on top of, four MotoGP teams – Honda, Aprilia, KTM and Suzuki – protested against Ducati’s winglet on the Desmosedici GP19.
The Stewards Panel present at the venue rejected the protest with the four manufacturers, minus Yamaha, then taking it to the Court of Appeals for further clarification on the matter and check if the device is indeed legal or not.
The Ducati management were confident about rejection ahead of the hearing which took place on March 22 at FIM Headquarters and their intuition stands corrected as the Court of Appeals rejected the protest laid down by the four teams.
Full statement from the FIM:
“During the MotoGP race at the season opener in Qatar on 10 March 2019, technical protests concerning the use of a device on the Ducati machine were lodged with the FIM MotoGP Stewards by Team Suzuki Ecstar against #43 Jack Miller (Ducati), by Repsol Honda Team against #4 Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati), and by Red Bull KTM Factory Team and Aprilia Racing Team Gresini against #9 Danilo Petrucci (Ducati).
“The protesting teams considered that the device was primarily an aerodynamic device and therefore not compliant with the MotoGP technical regulations. After a hearing, the four protests were rejected.
“The same four teams then lodged appeals against the MotoGP Stewards’ decision to the MotoGP Appeal Stewards and a further hearing was conducted. The MotoGP Appeal Stewards determined that further technical evaluation was required and that this was not possible under the circumstances.
“They therefore decided to refer the matter to the MotoGP Court of Appeal in accordance with Art. 3.3.3.2 of the applicable Regulations. Following a hearing in Mies on Friday 22 March, the MotoGP Court of Appeal handed down its decision today 26 March and the parties (the four appellants, Ducati and the FIM) have been duly notified.”
On these grounds, the Court of Appeal rules that:
“The appeals filed by Team Aprilia, Team Suzuki, Team Honda and Team KTM are admissible. The provisional race results are confirmed and are declared as final.
The request to declare the Device illegal and ban its use in future races is rejected.
“An appeal against this decision may be lodged before the Court of Arbitration of Sport (CAS) in Lausanne Switzerland within 5 days pursuant to Article 3.9 of the 2019 FIM World Championship Grand Prix Regulations.”
