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At the beginning of the year, much was made of the addition of rules governing rider behavior to the Sporting Regulations section of the FIM MotoGP rulebook.

That gave the newly instituted panel of FIM Stewards, who oversee all disciplinary measures, the power to punish riders and teams for a range of activities related to the promotion of the series.

The biggest worry was caused by section 1.11.4.1, which threatened punishment of riders who made public pronouncements considered harmful to the championship.

The first punishments under these new rules have been handed out, and those punishments make it clear that Dorna’s main target is to prevent riders from skipping their promotional obligations which the teams commit to as part of their contract to compete in the series.

At Sepang, the factory Suzuki, Honda and Ducati teams were all issued fines for their riders either missing or being late to autograph signing sessions.

MotoGP riders tested at Sepgang for the second time today, after waiting for the Malaysian track to dry out from the looming rains. For their second outing, Ben Spies gets the most improved award, as the Texan rookie moved up from yesterday’s 12th place testing position (2’03.142) to being the 5th quickest man around the track (2’02.266) today. Spies had complained of jetlag yesterday, but with nearly a second dropped off his pace, it would seem he got a full night’s sleep last night. The Malaysian outing has been especially good for Tech3 Yamaha, which saw Colin Edwards as the 3rd quickest man yesterday.