Pedro Acosta punished for breaking MotoGP’s new qualifying restart instructions

Pedro Acosta has become the first MotoGP rider punished after stricter restart instructions were introduced from Sepang to reduce yellow flag disruption in the crucial closing minutes of qualifying.

The FIM MotoGP Stewards announced that the KTM rider had been fined €2,000 after breaching the guidance during Saturday’s qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix.

"On 25TH October 2025 at 11:27:15 during the Qualifying 2 of the PETRONAS GRAND PRIX OF MALAYSIA, after a crash at Turn 1, within the final three minutes of the session, you restarted the bike and continued,” read the official statement.

“This directly contravenes the specific instructions given to MotoGP competitors and teams during a briefing on 23rd October 2025.”

The clampdown on restarting aims to limit yellow flag periods, which automatically cancel the laps of any rider passing through the affected area.

It is believed to have been triggered by the lengthy yellow flag period when Alex Rins tried to rejoin at the end of Mandalika qualifying.

While a fallen rider might re-join simply to try and salvage another final flying lap, prolonging yellow flag periods can also help preserve their grid position.

Either way, the only impact for Acosta is to his wallet, and he will start as planned from fifth on the grid in Sunday’s Malaysian MotoGP. 

Acosta's best lap time was set early in Qualifying 2, on his second of seven laps.

"I understand both sides, but when you crash, you're not going to check the dash to see if it's less than three minutes to go or three minutes and 20 seconds!" Acosta said.

"Also, if the marshals are pushing you out, you're not going to stop them!"

Earlier, the new restart instructions meant Fermin Aldeguer couldn’t rejoin after falling at the end of Qualifying 1.

Instead, he came back with his number one bike via a service road, but then crashed again as he rolled up to the back of the Gresini pits!

Aldeguer was later demoted from third to seventh in the Sprint race classification due to low tyre pressure, moving Acosta up to third place behind Francesco Bagnaia and Alex Marquez.