Lawyers for Andrea Iannone has explained how they intend to challenge the decision to hand him an 18-month suspension for a failed drugs test.
Last month the FIM Disciplinary Court acted upon his positive test for the banned steroid drostonolone during the 2019 Malaysian MotoGP race by handing down a lengthy suspension that would keep him out of action until midway through 2021 at the earliest.
The ruling came as a surprise to some inside Iannone’s circles having claimed judges presiding over his case accepted he had consumed the substance erroneously through contaminated meat.
It is this angle that Iannone’s lawyer Antonio De Rensis will pursue when he takes his appeal to the Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on May 15.
Suggesting he can show Iannone only consumed food during the event while staying in a ‘high class hotel’, it can prove he was let down by factors ultimately out of his control.
"The ruling clarified the contamination following meat intake, there is a point on page 15 [of the judgement] that, in our opinion, should determine the conclusion of the process with an acquittal," De Rensis told SkySport.it.
"Because the judges, I quote, 'also take note of the statements in the documents submitted by the rider regarding the high-class hotels where the rider ate meals and where contaminated food is not expected to be found. It follows that the rider's diet depended on the food available in the hotels and he did not have many other choices for meals'.
"You must tell me, in the face of these words by the judges, how you can give a person an 18-month suspension? They say that he did what he had to do, he had no other chance to eat.
"If Andrea had eaten in a small shop on the street, or had taken food from unknown people, then one could have doubts but the moment the athlete eats in the restaurant of a high-class hotel, I think he did everything he had to do.
"Nonetheless, he got an 18-month disqualification."
De Rensis is confident the ban will be overturned to allow Iannone to potentially even start the 2020 MotoGP season as planned with Aprilia while the series waits for the green light to get going again. Even if the ban is reduced to a year, Iannone could also make a return for 2021 with a full testing programme behind him.
