Alpinestars was unable to find any defect with the leathers of MotoGP title leader Fabio Quartararo during checks immediately aft🔜er the Catalunya race.

The zip on tꦅhe front of Quartararo's leathers came undone, for unknown reasons, through the Turn 1-3 area on lap 21 of 24. The Yamaha rider then discarded his chest protector and completed the race with the leathers open.

Although this put Quartararo in breach of the rider's safety equipment rules - which state leathers 🐼and chest protector 'must be worn,♊ correctly fastened, at all times during on-track activity' - he was surprisingly not black-flagged and allowed to finish in third place.

That became fourth when the Frenchman was penalised for cutting Turn ღ2 late in the grand prix, then sixth place after another 3-second penalty was eventually issued late on Sunday evening for the leathers and chest protector infringement.

Exactly why the🌊 zip came down remaಞins a mystery, Quartararo saying only that:

"I had the leathers completely open in the first corner and I just tried to put [the zip] back in a normal position again. I couldn't do it. When [the zip] is totally down you need to stretch﷽ [the two sides together to pull the zip back up], like a zip on a pair of jeans."

However, on the slow-down lap "it was possible again to close the zip" and Alpinestars have yet to find any fa♐ult.