I feel like “movie villain” because of comments on Quartararo suits

Quartararo rode the final laps of the Barcelona race two weeks ago with the Yamaha leather open after an obvious problem – although an investigation by Alpinestars found no problems with his racing suit.

Suzuki driver Mir criticized Quartararo for throwing away his chest protector, saying at the time that the Frenchman put the drivers around him at risk when he took it off and this warranted a penalty.

Quartararo was later beaten with a controversial three-second time penalty for the incident, dropping him to sixth place in the race result.

I’ve since clarified his comments, saying that he only saw one replay at the time but feels like he’s just being honest.

“Yes, I probably look like the bad guy, but I don’t think I’m saying something that we all don’t think,” he said at the German GP on Friday.

“I don’t want Fabio to be punished, and I don’t think anyone else will either.

“The only thing I said was that it would be dangerous if he really took off his breastplate.

“But if you later see when looking at the pictures that it has fallen off, that’s a different story.

“It’s true that I look like the bad guy in the movie, but I’m just trying to be honest, to give my opinion and always be objective.”

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I finished 16th at the Sachsenring on Friday after having “some problems with the feeling” on his Suzuki in the hot afternoon conditions.

However, he doesn’t think his position reflects his true potential and believes that he made a mistake on his time attack run by using the center front tire instead of the hard one.

Teammate Alex Rins had a far more enjoyable day, finishing fourth fastest despite having had an operation on a broken right arm just two weeks ago.

“Looks a bit difficult, but I’m pretty happy because I was able to put the pain aside and do the whole program. I was able to run the tests with the different tire compounds and different setups,” said Rins.

“Well, I’m very happy about it. I felt a bit of pain in my hand, definitely a lot in turn three, change of direction in turn four, five, with hard brakes.

“From FP1 to FP2 I didn’t take any painkillers and struggled a bit.

“But I really enjoy this track and I was able to be pretty fast.

“I’ll take one [painkiller] sleep today because it looks a bit inflamed.

“But it looks better than I expected: in terms of pain, it’s what I expected, but in terms of position, it’s better than expected.”