Yamaha man Locatelli caused a stir before the start of Saturday’s opener when he appeared to miss his braking point for Turn 1, cutting right across the bows of his teammate Toprak Razgatlioglu, as well as Jonathan Rea and Rinaldi, as he took to the escape road.
It was Rinaldi who was the most aggrieved by his compatriot’s actions, his frustration compounded when he found himself elbowed aside by a fast-starting Locatelli at Turn 2 once the race itself had begun.
While admitting that the distraction of what happened on the warm-up lap contributed to his less-than-stellar getaway from third on the grid, Rinaldi made clear his displeasure with Locatelli’s behaviour post-race.
"Locatelli made a huge mistake at Turn 1 [on the warm-up lap], he almost crashed into Toprak, Johnny and me,” recalled Rinaldi. “This made me very angry, so maybe I wasn’t in the right mindset for the start.
“Then again at Turn 2 [after the start], he pushed too much, I had to pick up the bike, if not I crash, and I think I lost four positions. It was my mistake that I could not handle that situation.
“Sometimes it's better to use your brain, because we are risking our lives. I try to respect other riders, but apart from Johnny, Alvaro and Toprak, they fight hard but with respect, some riders don't give a f*** about you.
“I am not a rider who [normally] complains. But sometimes you have to say something, because this is not the way to race, like this."
Rinaldi said he hoped Locatelli would get penalised for his warm-up lap mistake, but in the end the Yamaha rider escaped unsanctioned.
“He didn't say sorry and this is not good,” Rinaldi added. “If you make a mistake and say sorry, it’s ok, but if you try and justify yourself after such a strange manoeuvre, I think you are not using your brain for the second time."
For his part, Locatelli said that he knew he needed to make the most of the opportunity to gain places at the start having qualified a disappointing eighth.
“I was trying to take a reference for the first braking zone, but I realised I was too fast so I released the brake and opened the gas,” he said. “Because I was starting P8, I needed to recover some positions, so I needed to understand the reference.”
After finishing seventh in Race 1, Rinaldi vowed that he would finish the second full-length race of the Most weekend either “on the podium or in the gravel”, and true to his word, he crashed at Turn 1 while battling Jonathan Rea for third place in the early stages.
It leaves him fifth in the riders’ standings going into the summer break, a massive 164 points behind teammate Alvaro Bautista but only 14 behind Locatelli in the fight for fourth place.
