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# Heavy penalty for Bastianini despite claim MotoGP bike failure caused crash
- URL: https://www.the-race.com/motogp/heavy-penalty-for-bastianini-despite-claim-motogp-bike-failure-caused-crash/
- Published: 2025-08-23T16:09:17.000Z
- Updated: 2025-08-24T13:01:15.000Z
- Description: Tech3 KTM rider Enea Bastianini will serve a substantial penalty during MotoGP's Hungarian Grand Prix at Balaton Park following a collision with Johann Zarco in the sprint.
- Author: Valentin Khorounzhiy
- Tags: MotoGP, #enea-bastianini, #johann-zarco, #hungarian-grand-prix

Tech3 KTM rider Enea Bastianini will serve a substantial penalty during MotoGP's Hungarian Grand Prix at Balaton Park following a collision with Johann Zarco in the sprint.

This comes despite Bastianini indicating he wasn't at fault for the incident - pointing to a failure of the ride height device as a culprit.

This failure, he explained, was triggered by the whack his KTM took from Fabio Quartararo's Yamaha at Turn 1 earlier in the opening lap, before his crash with Zarco at Turn 9.

Zarco had felt it was simply a "crazy" manoeuvre from a rider he feels has often been reckless when needing to fight his way through the pack, but Bastianini said: "The device was broken, I arrived into Turn 9 with the bike down.

> Also [@Bestia23](https://twitter.com/Bestia23?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=the-race.com) & [@JohannZarco1](https://twitter.com/JohannZarco1?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=the-race.com) are out of contention 💔 [#HungarianGP](https://twitter.com/hashtag/HungarianGP?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=the-race.com) 🇭🇺 [pic.twitter.com/RmM8zePHJu](https://t.co/RmM8zePHJu?ref=the-race.com)
> 
> — MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) [August 23, 2025](https://twitter.com/MotoGP/status/1959240516438028317?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=the-race.com)

"I tried to brake also much earlier compared to normal \[to make it disengage\] but I didn't stop the bike and I hit Johann very very fast and we crashed.

"I tried to brake early."

Bastianini said Tech3 had brought supporting data to the hearing with the stewards - but it proved insufficient to sway the Simon Crafar-headed stewards' panel, which adjudged Bastianini to be guilty of "riding in an irresponsible manner causing a crash".

The stewards have logged this as Bastianini's second offense of the season - the first one being when he hit former team-mate Pecco Bagnaia at Turn 1 at Le Mans - and thus assessed him a double long lap penalty for Sunday.

This is likely to prove ruinous to Bastianini's race given the difficulty of overtaking at Balaton Park.