Francesco Bagnaia suffers an early setback in his quest to win a fourth MotoGP race in a row, at Misano on Sunday.
The factory Ducati star has been handed a three-place grid penalty for ‘riding slow on the racing line in FP1 and causing a dangerous situation for other riders’ during Friday morning’s practice session.
LCR Honda’s Alex Marquez and Bagnaia’s 2023 team-mate Enea Bastianini were the riders directly behind Bagnaia at the time of the incident.
Incident under investigation
Stewards will be looking at this moment between @PeccoBagnaia and @alexmarquez73 #SanMarinoGP pic.twitter.com/Gr4rSU46YC— MotoGP (@MotoGP) September 2, 2022
Bagnaia has halved the points gap to Fabio Quartararo over recent rounds but remains 44 adrift of the Yamaha rider and 12 behind Aleix Espargaro.
Quartararo was fastest in opening practice, with Espargaro fourth and Bagnaia sixth.