Joan Mir hit with long lap penalty at Portuguese MotoGP

Joan Mir will be stung by a long lap penalty which must be served at the Portuguese MotoGP.
Joan Mir hit with long lap penalty in Portimao

The pun💞ishment arrives for his part in a clash with Fabio Quartararo during the first-ever MotoGP sprint race at Portimao on Saturday.

A MotoGP statement claimed the penalty was "due to being overly ambitious🅺 and causi🌠ng contact with rider #20 which severely impacted their race".

Mir tri🍎ed and failed to overtake Qua𓄧rtararo, bumping into him in the process.

The weekend so far has been defined by crashes and injuries - Pol Espargaro has suffered jaw and lung injuries af🦋ter 💝falling on Friday, Enea Bastianini has a fractured shoulder blade after being knocked off his bike in the sprint race.

Quartararo, despite the contact, emerged safely.

“There will be a big accident," Quartararo warned afterwards. "I mean, it’s a jungle. We are not in cars, that in the end you touch and it’s not a problem,”﷽ he said.

“It's the same for 🦩everybody. I don't want to complain, but at the end it’s safety. It's not a problemꩵ to touch in the last laps with Alex - we touch 3-4 times, it's racing. [But] in the first laps this is about getting crazy.

“I think that for safety it's better to do 2 x 25 🤡laps than 12 laps. You also have a little bit more time to recover if you lose positions."

James was a sports jour🥀nalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, 🔯to F1.

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