On Sunday we reported that one of the commentators from Sportmediaset’s post race show talking to Valentino Rossi defined the Ducati GP11 a shitty bike (29 second mark in the video and the Italian words are moto di merda).
That statement caused a general outcry from hundreds of angry and upset Ducati fans who swamped the Italian media website (and not only) with comments insulting him and the show with demands that he be sacked.
The publicity was so negative that Nico Cereghini, the man behind the comment, yesterday offered his public apologies to Ducati and to all MotoGP fans for the word he used, stating that he should have never have said it, and that he was reading from his personal notes written immediately after Rossi’s crash and jokingly said it to Ducati rider, but it wasn’t meant to be an insult regarding the work that Ducati is doing, that he made a mistake and that words have to be measured and the rest is the usual blah, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, blah, blah.
It’s hard to clean up mess when you’ve put your foot into it especially when to 2 to 3 million TV viewers heard you say it and it spreads across the internet like wildfire amongst racing fans.
We’ll see if next year Mr.
Cereghini will be still part the show or if he’ll be dropped like Pierfrancesco Chili was from his role as Superbike commentator for the LA7 after his verbal altercation with Max Biaggi back in 2008 at Portimao.
