Eugene Laverty (PULL&BEAR Aspar Team) was on for a solid P11 finish in the Austrian GP, but the Irishman was caught up in a last lap incident as Danilo Petrucci (Octo Pramac Yakhnich) lost control of his Ducati and caught Laverty in the aftermath. The Italian was awarded a 3 place grid penalty for the incident to be applied at the HJC Helmets Grand Prix České Republiky at the Automotodrom Brno next time out, as well as recieving a penalty point - but did cross the line to finish in 11th despite the mishap.
Eugene Laverty (P18): "I got a terrible start, but I made up some places on the early laps. Then I had a lot of spinning at Turn 5, followed by a huge amount of chatter, and I thought it might have been an electrical problem. Something happened with the tyre -we've looked at the data and it turns out the problem was with both the front and the rear. I was trying to salvage some points at the end, and was fighting for eleventh on the final lap with Petrucci. In my opinion, he was riding more than aggressively -it was too much. At Turn 3 he rode almost on the inside of me instead of overtaking. He hit me at the apex and then I repassed him on Turn 4. I defended the line on the final corner, and again he did the same thing -coming up the inside- and I crashed. I'm not happy. It cost me eleventh place and we worked too hard this weekend for someone to ruin things for us 200 metres before the line, and all for a single point."
Danilo Petrucci (P11): "First of all I want to apologize to Eugene for hitting him. I did not want to pass him, I was just trying to attack, but I lost the front and I had to leave the brakes. I'm really sorry. It has been a very difficult weekend. I never found the right set up. The race pace was not so bad but I did too many mistakes in the first few laps."
@eugenelaverty no words for ask you sorry, I'm mortified ????✋????
— Danilo Petrucci (@Petrux9) 14 August 2016