Valentino Rossi loses appeal to have Valencia grid penalty suspended
Thursday 5 November 2015 14:58, UK
Valentino Rossi will start the final race of the MotoGP season at the back of the grid after his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) was rejected.
Rossi was given three penalty points for clashing with Marc Marquez during last month's Malaysia Grand Prix at Sepang, with his accumulation of penalty points enough to send him to the back of the grid for the next race.
The nine-time champion wanted the penalty to be pushed back to the start of the 2016 campaign so he could qualify as normal for the vital season finale in Valencia.
But the Italian will now have to try and defend his seven-point title lead over Spain's Jorge Lorenzo from last place, CAS stating that the sport's governing body, the International Motorcycling Federation (FIM), had followed all procedures correctly.
A CAS statement read: "After the race in Malaysia, the FIM race direction found that Valentino Rossi had deliberately run wide in order to force Marc Marquez off line, resulting in contact causing Marquez to crash out of the race.
"For this breach of the FIM regulations, the FIM race direction imposed three penalty points on the rider's record, a sanction confirmed later by the FIM stewards.
"Since Valentino Rossi already has one penalty point from an earlier incident this year, this decision brings him to a total of four penalty points. On the basis of FIM regulations, a rider with four penalty points must start the next race from last grid position.
"The CAS arbitrator found that the conditions to grant the stay were not met, which means that the sanction imposed by FIM will have to be served at the next Grand Prix in Valencia."
The controversy has cost Lorenzo one of his sponsors, with the Spaniard being criticised for a written submission to CAS against Rossi's request for a stay.
Watch company Sector No Limits said in a statement that its brand values had always been "sportsmanship, challenge, healthy competition and integrity".
The firm added that it had decided to leave MotoGP at the end of the season because it "could not identify with the events of recent weeks in the world championship."
