There was dramatic scenes early on in the MotoGP event on Sunday at Misano when home competitor Alex de Angelis crashed into Colin Edwards at the beginning of the initial lap, with the smash also sending Nicky Hayden into the gravel and finishing the race immediately for all three competitors.

After their excellent forms in test practice and each qualifying, the awesome threesome seemed due to gain good points to add to their total at round 13, unfortunately this was not to be with De Angelis taking the blame for the smash and was very apologetic afterwards to both Americans.

Edwards was not one for sympathy, he stated De Angelis’ racing as unacceptable. The Texan angrily commented, “I thought I had the pace to easily be fourth and maybe fight with Dani Pedrosa for a podium but we are in Italy and occasionally you have to deal with an Italian rider who wants to be a hero and today that was De Angelis. Turn one at the start with 17 bikes is not the place to be going at race pace and he was never going to make through there. Today De Angelis is the guy who needed to be wearing Valentino’s donkey helmet.”

He adds, “I didn’t know what had happened until I was sliding through the gravel. Turn one is the most dangerous time to crash with so many bikes around you, it is unacceptable. I’ve been fighting with Andrea Dovizioso in the championship most of the season and now he has ten points on me with four races to go. That’s racing.”

Meanwhile Hayden was also upset and in dismay having skipped the opportunity to allow all the Ducati supporters at Misano some joy. The Kentuckian racer says, “It’s easy to say it now but I just know I was set for a good race so I’m extremely disappointed. Maybe I wasn’t going to win but at least I could have run with the front guys for a while and given all the Ducatisti something to cheer, as well as picking up some vital experience and data for this machine.”

He continues, “To be honest I had a feeling De Angelis might create some drama here. He’s at home and fighting for his job and when I saw him in the corner of my eye I just tried to gas it and get out of his way. Unfortunately he slightly clipped my rear wheel and that was the last I knew about it. I know in racing people can make mistakes and I have done plenty in my life but I’m not happy with Alex because this wasn’t racing - it was just stupid to try and pull a move like that on cold tyres, on the first lap. Anyway, we’re all okay and looking forward to Portugal.”

On his part it was a massive error and De Angelis has now been unable to complete an event on 2 occasions, having also smashed out last season.

He says, “I got a decent start and thought I could make some more ground up on the inside on the turn but I went in too deep. Colin cut in front of me and I braked as hard as I could to avoid him but the front folded and I hit him. Unfortunately Nicky was hit as well and I apologise to both of them. Unfortunately these things happen in racing and I am desperately disappointed because this is my home race, there were a lot of people here supporting me and I wasn’t able to deliver a good result. It is especially frustrating because we had the potential to put a really good race together here after another excellent weekend, but we’ll take the positives out of it and try to continue with our recent progress at Estoril.”