Jorge Martin penalised for ‘irresponsible riding’, keeps podium
Several riders and teams were heavily critical of the FIM Stewards for not immediately punishing Martin, during Saturday’s race.
For several hours, it even appeared that the Pramac Ducati rider - who had dived for the inside at turn one, triggering an incident that involved five other riders - might escape punishment altogether.
But at 7pm local time, the Stewards issued a long lap penalty for Martin, to be served in Sunday’s grand prix, for ‘riding in an irresponsible manner causing a crash’.
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The included 'Penalty Explanation' read: "Following the Penalty Protocols issued to teams, this action was deemed to be an incident of Type 3: Causing a crash whilst overtaking. Overly ambitious and/or aggressive resulting in another rider crashing (n any session). As a first offence for the season, the appropriate penalty in this case is a Long Lap Penalty."
Martin, who lined up twelfth on the grid after losing his best lap in qualifying due to track limits, earlier escaped punishment for Luca Marini's accident, while being passed by Martin for third during the middle of the 14-lap race.
Marini accepted that the contact his resulting accident had been a racing incident.
But the Italian also pointed out that if Martin had been given an instant long-lap penalty for the Turn 1 chaos, they would not have been together on track at that point...
