Contact: Black flag if another rider falls?

A much-anticipated meeting of the riders' Safety Commission was held at COTA on Friday evening, where the events of Argentina were top of the agenda.

While no formal statements are issued about what is intended to be a private meeting for riders to speak freely, the main news leaking from the gathering was an agreement that harsher punishments will be issued for heavy contact.

That could include a black flag if, when attempting to overtake, a rider causes an opponent to fall.

Such criteria would mean that Marc Marquez would have got a black flag, rather than a 30-second post-race penalty, for the incident with Valentino Rossi - although it wouldn't have made any difference to the zero points scored for either rider.

However, it would also have presumably meant that Johann Zarco would have been black-flagged for the opening lap contact with Dani Pedrosa…

But the biggest difficulty will occur in situations where a rider is forced off-track, but avoids a fall.

For example, after Aleix Espargaro was hit by Marquez, he sat his Aprilia up and went straight off the track. Rossi, hit at the same corner later in the race, fell when he was forced onto the wet grass while leaning his Yamaha to try and make the corner.

Marquez was required to drop one position during the race for the Espargaro incident, but got the much harder post-race 'ride-through' (30-seconds) for the Rossi collision.

For Espargaro, speaking on Thursday at COTA, both incidents should receive the same punishment.

"I'm really angry about this actually because it looks like in this championship we penalise [only] when the other rider crashes," said Espargaro, who also called for the black flagged to be used.

"But I didn't crash because when I went out of the track, I didn't go on the grass. If I went on the grass, I would have crashed.

"Was it harder with Valentino because Valentino crashed? No, it was the same.

"So it doesn’t have to be connected to whether you crash or not. The action is the same.

"If you touch a bit the other rider as you pass, but both riders finish the corner, this is close pass. It's fine.

"But not when you hit somebody and the other guy goes out of the track."

Espargaro was also hit by Danilo Petrucci during the Argentina race, in what the Spaniard said was a harder impact than from Marquez.

As in the later incident, Espargaro ran off track but didn't fall.  No punishment was given.

All punishments will continue to be decided by a three-man panel of FIM Stewards.