A rider earns the sanction by being slow in three (not necessarily consecutive) sectors; and ramped up penalties are 12 grid places for a first offence, and the back of the grid for a second.

Adam Norrodin earned the maximum; and his Petronas team-mate Ayumu Sasaki the lesser one, earning the opprobrium of team chief Johan Stigefelt, since waiting for a faster rider is a particularly pointless exercise in free practice.

The others to be dropped 12 places were veteran Jakub Kornfeil, Kaito Toba and rookie Dennis Foggia.

By Michael Scott