Marquez proposes 'lollipop man' for MotoGP bike swaps

As the discussion over pit lane safety continues following Sunday's Czech Republic MotoGP, reigning world champion Marc Marquez has proposed the use of an F1-style 'lollipop man'.

Andrea Iannone fell from his Suzuki after crossing paths with Aleix Espargaro during their bike swap, while footage has also emerged of Loris Baz's bike knocking down his mechanic.

While Marquez felt the Baz incident was simply "a riding mistake, like when in Formula One a driver comes into the pits and brakes too late", he did feel more could be done to avoid a repeat of the Iannone-Espargaro mix-up.

"For me a good proposal, that I will try to speak about in the Safety Commission, is that for each rider we need one more mechanic outside in pit lane," said the Repsol Honda rider, speaking in the Brno paddock after Monday's post-race test.

"This mechanic would only be allowed to concentrate and check if somebody is coming, with a stick like in Formula One [a 'lollipop man']. Then if the stick is down, you cannot go out. If he pulls the stick up, you can go out.

"This is something that for the future I think will be interesting, because if not it's more difficult to see a mechanic signal only with his hand."

Another possibility, raised by the likes of Espargaro on Sunday, is to impose a minimum bike-swap time as in WorldSBK, removing some of the urgency - and therefore danger - from the changeover.

Marc VDS Honda's Jack Miller said he also supported such as system.

"As a few people have said, I like the Superbike rule with a minimum time in the pits. So you're not rushing and doing stupid things, like what happened with Andrea and Aleix yesterday. I'm mean, that's just dangerous.

"I saw it on the TV in my motorhome last night. Andrea's bike slammed into Rins' bike and if somebody's legs are in-between, it's going to be real bad."