“Do you want to see my helmet and my leathers? There is a long black strip – the Manzi rubber. He attacked me three times and he could have killed me too.”

Romano Fenati has announced his retirement from motorcycle racing following his brake-grab incident at the Misano Moto2 race last Sunday.

The 22-year-old has spoken to the Italian newspaper La Republica, telling the publication that he was done with racing and would swap the global racing scene for a non-racing job.

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He said: “I’m finished with the motorcycle world, I will not run again. I was wrong, it’s true: I apologise to everyone.

“I’m sorry, I will not run anymore.

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“Nobody cares about my pain. I was not a real man, I can not handle anger but also, Manzi could have killed me.”

He added: “Do you want to see my helmet and my leathers? There is a long black strip – the Manzi rubber. He attacked me three times and he could have killed me too.

“The last time I had it done to me was 500 metres before the incident.

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“It was then that I I thought ‘Now I do the same. I’ll show you that I can be bad!’ and maybe you will finally understand what it means. But I never thought to hurt him, I swear.”

“It was then that I I thought ‘Now I do the same. I’ll show you that I can be bad!’ and maybe you will finally understand what it means.”

The news comes just four days after the incident which saw Fenati reach across and grab Manzi’s front brake lever as the pair battled side-by-side at 130mph on the straight at the Italian circuit. Figures released by Manzi’s team showed that Fenati hit the lever and caused 20 bar of pressure with the strike, the normal amount of pressure put on the lever by a Moto2 rider at Misano is reportedly 9 bar.

Yesterday we told you how the Italian Motorcycle Federation had taken Fenati’s racing license and begun court proceedings against the rider with a hearing scheduled by the prosecutor on September 14.

Fenati’s announcement casts a different light on what happened from the rider’s point of view to the apology he issued on Monday after losing his 2018 ride with the Marinelli Snipers Moto2 team and his 2019 contract with MV Agusta where he was due to race alongside Stefano Manzi, the rider he clashed with on Sunday.

In Monday’s apology Manzi said that he acted “disgracefully” in putting Manzi’s life at risk.

He said: “I apologise to the whole sports world. This morning, with a clear mind, I wish it had been just a bad dream.

“I think back to those moments, I made a disgraceful gesture, I was not a man.

“The criticisms are correct and I understand the resentment towards me. I want to apologise to everyone who believed in me and all those who felt hurt by my actions.

“Unfortunately I have an impulsive character, but my intention was certainly not to hurt a rider like me but I wanted to make him understand that what he was doing was dangerous.

“I do not want to justify myself, I know that my gesture is not justifiable, I just want to apologise to everyone.”

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Tony Carter

Tony has been riding motorcycles for over 35 years and he's been a motorcycle writer for over 25 of those. He's ridden almost every motorcycle you can think of at most places around the world and he's partial to some racing, too. A Taurus, Tony doesn't believe in horoscopes (but then that's exactly what a Taurus would say!) but he does believe in Mandalorians and their right to earn a living.