Marquez handed penalty point for Pedrosa clash

Marc Marquez has escaped serious punishment for his part in the incident that led to Dani Pedrosa's retirement from the Aragon Grand Prix, the MotoGP World Championship leader receiving a penalty point while Honda has been docked 25 constructors' championship points.

Ahead of this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang, a meeting of race direction was called to investigate whether Marquez should be penalised for making contact with Pedrosa after overshooting the braking zone at turn 12. Clipping a rear-wheel speed sensor cable that disengaged the traction control, Pedrosa subsequently crashed out of the race.

With Marquez going on to win the race, thus extending his series lead, the subsequent investigation would see representatives of Marquez, Pedrosa and the Repsol Honda team convene with race direction in Malaysia to discuss a potential penalty.

After an hour of deliberation it was determined that Marquez would receive a penalty point (not a championship point) for his part in the Arag?n clash. This decision takes his total of penalty points to three for the 2013 MotoGP season, having previously received two for ignoring yellow flags during Warm-Up for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Honda, however, has been docked the full 25 points as a punishment for not safeguarding the exposed sensor cable. Technical director Takeo Yokoyama has since confirmed measures have been taken to prevent this from happening again.

The decision not to reprimand Marquez with a championship points' penalty duly protects his substantial lead over Jorge Lorenzo in the overall standings, the Spaniard 39 points ahead with five races remaining.

However, should Marquez accrue just one more penalty point this season, he will be forced to start from the back of the grid for the next grand prix. Seven penalty points mean a pit lane start and ten penalty points would result in a disqualification from the next GP.