VR46 Ducati MotoGP rider Franco Morbidelli has vowed to be "less aggressive" in upcoming rounds, faced with a threat of a race-ruining penalty.
Morbidelli confirmed on Friday at Misano what his team manager Pablo Nieto had said earlier in the day - that Morbidelli was informed in a meeting by the stewards' panel headed up by Simon Crafar that any further breaches of wheel-to-wheel etiquiette would result in a ride-through penalty.
While he's accrued a series of sanctions over the season, most relevant currently is Morbidelli colliding with Maverick Vinales at Mugello and with Jorge Martin in Barcelona, both coming as a result of overtaking moves best described as optimistic.
Long lap penalties were the result in both cases, but further breaches will - as anticipated - be judged far more severely.
A ride-through penalty in MotoGP would effectively render any rider's race a write-off, so is on paper a powerful deterrent.
It is thought that Moto3 rider David Munoz received a similar sort of warning from the stewards earlier in the season.
Asked if he was on a yellow card now, Morbidelli said on Friday: "I feel like I'm on an orange card!"
But while Morbidelli has been displeased for much of the season for how his on-track actions were beind adjudged and discussed - feeling like he was being singled out - he arrived at Misano with more of a conciliatory tone, accepting publicly that he needed to work on his riding to make sure it is more in line with what the stewards want to see.
"I'm going to definitely have to be less aggressive," he accepted on Friday.
"Definitely going to have to be less aggressive, to risk less for some happenings that can be read as offensive. I'm going to have to be definitely less aggressive.
"This is an advantage for my opponents that, if they are good, they can for sure use. But that's what I have to do in order to not go through any episode that can be read as offensive.
"The deal is that I need to pay more attention, in some moves that I do, and that's what I will try to do.
"[Longer-term] I will try to be - I will work to be - definitely less aggressive and definitely more precise. But meanwhile I will have to completely shut [off] the aggression button, because if I make a mistake, I'm going to pay it quite heavily."
