Iannone's lawyer confident over quick appeal decision

Aprilia rider Andrea Iannone

Andrea Iannone's lawyer is confident the Aprilia rider will discover if his appeal against an 18-month MotoGP ban has been successful before the season starts.

Iannone was last month hit with a heavy sanction after testing positive for a banned substance in 2019.

The Italian was provisionally suspended in December after returning an adverse finding of a non-specified substance, later confirmed to be an illegal anabolic agent, in a urine sample taken at last year's Malaysian Grand Prix.

Iannone has taken the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with the FIM ruling having recognised the 30-year-old appeared to have eaten contaminated meat.

Antonio De Rensis, Iannone's lawyer, is optimistic the rider will be fully acquitted and expects a verdict to be reached within two months.

"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."

He added: "The CAS will have to evaluate whether an athlete has done everything he should, as is also written in the sentence. I believe that Andrea Iannone deserves to be completely acquitted.

"We will file the appeal by May 15, but certainly before, at that point the federation has 20 days to reply to our arguments. 

"I am confident that a decision can be reached in two months. In short, we trust that when presumably the world championship will start, Andrea will already have had the final sentence."

MotoGP organisers are hoping between 12 and 16 rounds will be possible in a season that has not started due to the coronavirus pandemic, with proposals to get under way with back-to-back races in Spain on July 19 and 26.