Here is the video from Race Direction showing Crutchlow’s jump start at the

The explanation of how he was penalised for thജis can be found under article 1.18 section 14 of the rule book (see the tweet below for full description).

— MotoGP™  (@MotoGP)

Cal Crutchlow's hopes🌸 of a podium finish in Sunday's Argentina MotoGP were sunk by a 'ridiculous' jump start penalty.

The LCR Honda rider claimed&nbꦰsp;ဣspecialist camera footage of his grid position available to the FIM Stewards Panel showed he moved by less than a centimetre.

Crutchlow insisted that movement was while using his toes to balance himself on the bike and his clut🐼ch was still fully engaged until the lights went out.

"If you look at the side camera, which is what they showed me, I 🎐moved. But not even a centimetre," Crutchlow said. "I'm balancing on my t💛oes.

"It's not that I've released♚ the clutch. Because we can show that the clutch is fully to the bar, and then I♈ released the clutch once. So, if there's a big gap from the clutch lever to the bite of the clutch - it's not that I'm holding it on the bike and rolling it.

"I'm balancing. And they're say🐻ing it's a jump start. It's just ridiculousဣ."

Under the rules, had Crutchlow moved before the lights went out but then stopped, he may have avoided a penal꧑ty.

'I never gained anything'

But Crutchlow wಌas especially critical of💃 Freddie Spencer, a 27-time grand prix winner and triple world champion who has taken over the role of Chairman of the FIM MotoGP Stewards Panel this season with the aim of better understanding what happens on track from the point of view of the riders.

"Somebody who has been brought in to understand racing, and understand ♒the racꦐer's point of view with regards to passing and incidents on the track, as far as I'm concerned he should…

"I'm not saying give me the benefit of the doubt, beܫcause I did nothing wrong. I'm not rolling [on the clutch] at all. I'm literally balancing on my toe. It's just ridiculous, completely ridiculous. But I can't change it.

"At the next Safety Commission ✃[meeting] when we show the video, the other riders will laugh, and they will then lose the respect for him as well.

"This is just ridicu𒉰lous. I never gained anything. It makes it look worse that I made a fantastic start. But there's no way I'm rolling when the lights went out. But that's just the way it is."

'Do you think he would have given Valentino a ride through?'

Controversially, Crutchlow also fee൩ls such a marginal penalty call would not have been made against some of the other riders.

"My problem that I have with Race Direction is that I don't believ꧒e they would have given this penalty to Marc, Vale, Dovi, or someone like that. And t🀅hat's the truth.

"Do you think he would have given Valentino a ride through? I'm not picking on Valentino or any one rider, I'm talking about somebody with a high profile. I don't believe𒊎 he would have.

"Say Marc had done that, and 🌟he was leading the race, do you think🌼 he would have given him a ride through? I don't. That's my opinion though. Of course he's going to say he would, but I don't agree with that.

"But he's made a fantastic name for hi🔯mself in his role. I have the utmost respect for what he did as a rider, but the Safety Commission, we asked for somebody that understands racing, that's going to have some discretion and understanding of the rules and what's gaining and what's not gaining, what's bad passes and what's not bad passes...

"It's just ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous."

A furious Crutchlow was seen heading straight for 🦩Race Direction after the grand prix♛.

"W💧hen I went up there, Freddie Spencer didn't say one word to me. He just stood there with his arms folded….

"I was in there ten minutes, complaining a🦋nd saying that I was not moving. My whole team was. But not one of [the Stewards Panel] said one word.

"It sounds like I'm on a🅠n absoluteಞ rampage and attack against them, but you have to understand the way that I'm feeling, and you have to understand the way that every single person that I've asked, that sees it on TV, is feeling. That I never jumped the start.

"It neཧeds looking at, because it's just ruined a whole grand prix for 5♍0 staff and me.

"But this is the way it is. I have accepted it, I have to move on, I have ไto do a good race in Texas, and I think we can."

Crꦉutchlow, on the podium in round one and expecting to ⛎fight for the rostrum again in Argentina, eventually finished in 13th place.

'Cal's movement at the start was irrelevant. Really nothing'

LCR team principal Lucio Cecchinello 🦋said: “I am absolutely disappointed with what the Race Direction have done with us today. The penalty that Cal got was tremendously hard and his movement at the star🔜t was irrelevant, really irrelevant. We’re talking about 1.5 or 2 centimetres, it’s really nothing.

"However, we cannot d🔯o very much, all we can do is put forward our opinion at the next [safety] committee meeting that the penalty for this kind of infringement is far too hard. There is no relation between the potential gain of a couple of a centimetres compared to the 30-second penalty you get doing a ride through.”

There ha🐠ve been suggestions that the new 'long lap' penalty loop should be used for some marginal jump starts, rather than a race-wrecking ride-through penalty.

♎"If you jump the start, and just set off like a madman, then I understand a ride through,💎" Crutchlow said. "But that penalty today didn't fit the crime for sure, because I didn't jump the start."