Marquez crash under yellow flags risked lives

Marquez fell at Turn 14 a few moments after Nicky Hayden had done the same, as Hayden's bike was being retrieved from the run-off area.

Espargaro's brother Pol had fallen there at that exact moment as well, and subsequent replays indicated that the Tech 3 rider had been taken out by Marquez, who was passing him on the inside of the corner.

Marquez's bike slid past Hayden's Marc VDS machine in the run-off, while Espargaro's ended up colliding with the American's Honda - albeit not before track workers and Hayden himself had jumped away from the site.

Having qualified eighth, Aleix Espargaro said that he was especially careful under yellows after Marquez's FP3 mistake.

"On my last lap, it was yellow flags in corner 1 and corner 13, I think, Cal [Crutchlow] and Dani [Pedrosa]'s crashes," said the Suzuki rider.

"And after what happened with Marc this morning, I decided automatically to brake a little bit early."

Asked to elaborate, Aleix Espargaro said: "When it's a yellow flag on the track, you need to brake a little bit earlier - because it means there's marshals and somebody on the floor.

"He [Marquez] crashed, so for sure he braked too late. The bike almost hit the bike and Nicky, he [Marquez] hit my brother - this can happen, no problem.

"But the thing is, when it's yellow flag, you cannot crash. It can be persons working on the track and, very easy, if the bike hits them, you can kill them. Very easy.

"And it's not the first time - it was the same problem at Silverstone two years ago, we were very lucky. Second time, very lucky. I hope there's not going to be a third time."

The Suzuki rider was referring to an incident in Sunday warm-up at Silverstone in 2013, when Marquez was awarded for penalty points for crashing in the Vale corner, where marshals were already attending to Crutchlow.

"You just need to brake one metre early and that's it. I f**k up my qualifying but I think it's better than other things."

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont