MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Perhaps the sprint races are starting to calm down a bit. Sure, there were only 17 finishers – Raul Fernandez withdrew on Friday because of his arm pump surgery, and Jack Miller, Augusto Fernandez, Jonas Folger, and Fabio Quartararo all crashed out – but there were no injuries, no riders taking each other out, no excessively enthusiastic attempts at a pass ending in collisions. It was hard, close, clean competition.

Surprising, then, that once again all of the drama is around the standard of stewarding. After the meeting the Stewards had on Friday with the riders, explaining how each contact would be punished and laying out the guidelines they use to assess which penalty to apply in which situation, they went on to apparently throw their own guidelines out of the window and – correctly – not penalize any of the several riders who touched other riders while making hard passes. This left half the riders furious, the other half delighted, and everyone dismissing the role of the Stewards as pointless. It felt like they span the great Wheel O' Penalties again, and we all got lucky when it came back saying "Free Pass".