Aleix: 0.8s Long Lap penalty ‘a joke’, ‘we have to be more professional’

Espargaro added that he fully supports the Long Lap as a way of penalising riders.

“In the past, if you did a jump start then you had to do a ride-through [the pits] and this was a disaster. Now if you do a Long Lap penalty it is better for the show. It is a good invention, but now we have to be serious with it.

“I don’t think it is that difficult [to get the same time Long Lap time at each track]. Someone can come with a Superbike and try it, if it’s too fast then you tighten it. You can have half a second up or down, but not from 3.1-3.2 like it was in Barcelona to 0.8 here. That’s a huge difference.

“You can see here that it is one metre out of the track and with the same layout. It’s easy!”

For Espargaro, it comes down to consistency once again.

“I have nothing against Fabio. It looks like I’m saying all this because he has to do the Long Lap, but again, what we want is that things are the same: the Long Lap penalty, the penalties in general and how we treat everything.

“Once again, we get to another track and it is different; this is what we need to improve.”

Joan Mir jokes: Maybe you gain time on this Long Lap!

Espargaro wasn’t the only one to highlight the lack of time lost on the Long Lap at Silverstone.

“This Long Lap penalty, maybe you gain a bit of time rather than lose!” joked Suzuki’s Joan Mir. “Okay, for sure you don't gain time. But it's not 3 seconds, not at all. Maybe just 1 second.

“It's a really tight corner, and also it's really close [to the racing] line. In a slow corner you always lose less time than in a fast corner.

“I think that this can be improved a little bit more, to have more or less that 3 seconds average [at every track].”

A ‘delayed’ Long Lap would also help Quartararo

Aside from the time lost in the Long Lap, the timing of when Quartararo serves the penalty will also determine how many places he loses.

The earlier in the race the ‘Long Lap’ board is shown, after which Quartararo will have three laps in which serve the penalty, the more positions the Frenchman is likely to concede.

“I will not say a number, but we lose quite a lot [of time],” Quartararo said of his Long Lap practice.

“I also need to make it in the beginning of the race, but I hope I will not make it so much in the beginning because I think it’s quite a dangerous place to get back on the track.

“Of course, it’s also a small advantage for me [to take later], but for the safety, I hope they will not put it straight away from the first lap, but maybe from the second or third lap.”

Other riders serving Long Laps in the early stages of a race have lost around 3-4 positions this year.

Quartararo, last year’s Silverstone winner, was fastest during Friday practice with Espargaro, currently 21 points behind the Yamaha rider, in a close fifth (+0.207s).