Last Sunday, during the Catalunya GP, we witnessed an absurd scene, in which Fabio Quartararo completed the last two laps of the race with his leathers unzipped. The reason for this is still a mystery, but Alpinestars, the Italian firm that produced the suit, has released some initial information having carefully examined the leathers.
All intact
The post on their Twitter account reads: “Following Sunday’s MotoGP race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, the Alpinestars’ Racing Development team commenced an investigation into the integrity of Fabio Quartararo’s racing suit. The team found the suit to be in normal working order with all zippers and fasteners fully functioning. Furthermore, all the suit’s componentry, including the Tech-Air® Airbag System, was intact and fully functioning”.
So no anomaly that might explain what happened to the Frenchman. The analysis doesn’t end there though: “This is only a first assessment, to be further investigated once the suit is in the laboratory at Alpinestars headquarters, conducting all testing and analysis to understand more about the cause of what happened”.
And there was no issue with the airbag system, as Alpinestars confirms: “It did not deploy during the race, it functioned as expected, as there was not a crash situation”.
Translated by Heather Watson
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