Michael Scott | May 8, 2024
Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
Zarco Attacks Spencer, Omerta Prevails
The usual way it goes when riders are called in front of the FIM stewards is for them to get a bollocking and maybe a fine or another penalty. Although they do get a chance to state their case.
Johann Zarco, elder statesman of the grid, turned that upside down at Jerez.
Instead, it was the Frenchman, famously articulate and always verging on the verbose, who handed out the bollocking and was turfed out on his ear for his trouble.
Zarco’s target was FIM Stewards Chairman Freddie Spencer, the riders’ favorite hate figure. Zarco may be the most outspoken, but he is far from the first to turn against the former racing legend.
At 33, he’s not the oldest rider on the grid—Aleix Espargaro (another with plenty of opinions) is 14 days short of a year older—and has more GP starts. But the Frenchman has his two Moto2 titles, and at least as clear a grasp of the ethics, the rights and wrongs, of racing.
And having extended his racing career with a two-year help-Honda-recover contract, probably his last, has no need to curry favor or mince his words.
Oddly, what triggered his anger was not a punishment, but the lack of punishment. To him, it showed weakness, with stewards reliably either over- or under-reacting. No consistency.
Freddie has volunteered for criticism when he became chief of the stewards, appointed in 2019 to take over discipline from the over-burdened Race Director.
Rather surprisingly, Freddie has resolutely declined to be interviewed, eschewing any chance to explain himself. This has reinforced an impression of arrogance. Perhaps unfairly.
Anyone (like me) old enough to remember Freddie’s racing days will know it is more complicated than that.
Freddie stood alone, like Rossi and Marquez in their glory days. He really was a fantastic rider.
Freddie has resolutely declined to be interviewed, eschewing any chance to explain himself. This has reinforced an impression of arrogance. Perhaps unfairly
He took the 500 title from Kenny Roberts in 1983 (though had there been stewards then to punish his last-lap indiscretion in Sweden, it would have gone the other way) and the 250/500 double in 1985. And then it all went haywire. As though he had forgotten how to ride.
He was always highly enigmatic. Here’s one story: The team and tire folks all went to Brazil or somewhere for preseason testing, but Freddie didn’t turn up.
So, when he went, almost overnight, from superstar to also-ran, it may have been a little easier to understand.
Actually, no, it wasn’t. It just added to the mystery.
Back to Jerez, fellow veteran Espargaro had knocked Zarco off in a failed overtake.
Called to the stewards, with their plethora of different TV angles and all-knowing accord, one might have expected Espargaro to get a rap on the knuckles at least, and Zarco to have been pleased about it.
Not so.
“Spencer was looking at me like he wanted to know what I wanted,” Zarco was quoted. “He wanted for me to complain about Aleix … he was waiting for me to do this.”
“I said ‘I will not complain. Don’t ask me what you have to do.’ [I] said he is not good for this job because he doesn’t take the right decision in the right moments. You are not in the right place.”
He was evidently vehement enough to be kicked out of the room but remained unrepentant.
As always, the stewards were inconsistent during a very busy weekend. For example, Joan Mir was upset that Marc Marquez was only told “lose one place” after barging hard into him in the Sprint. The year before, Mir had been given a double long-lap for a similar offence.
The stewards may have had good reason for this disparity, but their voluntary omerta means we will never know.
And Freddie will carry on bearing the brunt of the hostility.CN
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