MotoGP riders could face fines of £12,500 for missing promotional events

MotoGP riders will want to make sure they attend all promotional events going forward, after the full picture of the championship’s new penalty scheme was revealed. 

This was first reported by The Race, after an email was sent to all the teams at the Australian Grand Prix. 

During the recent Indonesian Grand Prix, it had already been reported by Motorsport.com that riders were facing fines of €5,000 (roughly £4,100) for missing promotional events.

However, the full scale of penalties includes six total punishments, starting with a warning for a first offence. 

If a rider then misses an event for the second time, they will cop the already-reported €5,000 fine. A third offence will earn a rider a fine of €10,000 (around £8,300 at current exchange rates).

If a rider falls victim to a fourth offence, the fine reaches a total of €15,000 (£12,500). Even for a professional athlete, that’s a considerable amount of money to lose for not showing up to an event.

Beyond the fines mentioned above, there are two on-track-related penalties that will be handed out should a fifth and sixth offence be committed.

The first of those would result in a rider being forced to sit out part of a practice session, while the final offence would lead to a rider receiving a grid drop.  

A typical grid drop in MotoGP is three places, but if the championship’s decision makers wanted to make an example out of someone, and with this being the last penalty a rider would receive, something tells me the grid drop punishment would be a lot more severe than three places.

This all stems from riders missing events in the past, with the most recent, and high-profile, being Marc Marquez at the Japanese Grand Prix. Marquez decided he did not want to take part in the pre-race go-kart event, instead sending a body double to take part for him. Moto2 and Moto3 riders will be held to the same standards, although their fine amounts will differ.

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