Moto2 team owner Sito Pons has avoided a potential sentence of 24 years and a €12 million fine after a decision in his favour at the Court of Barcelona.
Pons had been taken to court over six alleged crimes against the Spanish tax authorities, Crash.net reports.
Pons, Spanish newspaper La Marca reports, was alleged to have failed to fulfil his tax obligations between 2010 and 2014.
However, the Court of Barcelona found that Pons had spent more than 200 days outside of Spain during this period at racing circuits around the world, and that his tax residence was outside of Spain throughout this period; first in Monaco between 2010 and 2012, and then in the UK from 2013 to 2014.
Pons’ acquittal by the Court of Barcelona means he escapes sentencing, of course. The prosecution, La Marca says, asked for a sentence of 24 years in prison and an additional fine of €12 million (around £10.5 million at time of writing, January 2023).
The acquittal also brings an end to a saga which had been public since the turn of the decade, two years ago.
Pons, the 250cc World Champion of 1988 and 1989, is also well-known in MotoGP as the team owner of the Flexbox HP 40 team in the Moto2 World Championship, who in 2022 entered Aron Canet and Jorge Navarro; the latter having departed for World Supersport in 2023 to be replaced by 2022 Moto3 runner-up Sergio Garcia.
The team’s only Moto2 World Championship to date came in 2013 with Pol Espargaro, and the team’s history dates back to 1992 when it won the Dutch TT with Alex Criville who in doing so became the first Spanish winner of a premier class Grand Prix.
