Tech3 KTM rider Enea Bastianini will serve a substantial penalty during MotoGP's Hungarian Grand Prix at Balaton Park following a collision with Johann Zarco in the sprint.
This comes despite Bastianini indicating he wasn't at fault for the incident - pointing to a failure of the ride height device as a culprit.
This failure, he explained, was triggered by the whack his KTM took from Fabio Quartararo's Yamaha at Turn 1 earlier in the opening lap, before his crash with Zarco at Turn 9.
Zarco had felt it was simply a "crazy" manoeuvre from a rider he feels has often been reckless when needing to fight his way through the pack, but Bastianini said: "The device was broken, I arrived into Turn 9 with the bike down.
Also @Bestia23 & @JohannZarco1 are out of contention ? #HungarianGP ?? pic.twitter.com/RmM8zePHJu
"I tried to brake also much earlier compared to normal [to make it disengage] but I didn't stop the bike and I hit Johann very very fast and we crashed.
"I tried to brake early."
Bastianini said Tech3 had brought supporting data to the hearing with the stewards - but it proved insufficient to sway the Simon Crafar-headed stewards' panel, which adjudged Bastianini to be guilty of "riding in an irresponsible manner causing a crash".
The stewards have logged this as Bastianini's second offense of the season - the first one being when he hit former team-mate Pecco Bagnaia at Turn 1 at Le Mans - and thus assessed him a double long lap penalty for Sunday.
This is likely to prove ruinous to Bastianini's race given the difficulty of overtaking at Balaton Park.
