Vinales gets three-place drop for blocking Smith

Vinales and Morbidelli were riding at low speed in the closing stages of Q1, and compromised one of Smith's fast laps.

The KTM rider, who had enjoyed a strong weekend so far, was just one tenth slower than Vinales' benchmark time after three of the four sectors when he caught the crawling trio of Vinales, Morbidelli and Xavier Simeon at Turn 16.

Smith had to go around the outside of the Morbidelli and Simeon but then had to move to the inside line to also pass Vinales. His lap time of 1m48.216s was eventually four tenths off the Q2 cut-off.

After qualifying, Smith called the situation dangerous and felt Morbidelli, who was given a six-place grid penalty, was the worst offender.

"[I'm] a little bit disappointed, a lot of experienced motorcycle racers sat in the braking area, and the closing speed is just so dangerous," said Smith.

"I'm doing 330km/h and they're doing no more than 150km/h, and I don't know which way they're going to go.

"It looked quite calm on the TV but you imagine, arriving at that speed is certainly not calm.

"I had to go on the kerb to avoid Morbidelli and then try and dive in on the inside of Maverick there. It's disappointing because I definitely felt a 1m47s [lap] was there.

"I caught Maverick unawares, Maverick tried to open, but if you're doing 150km/h and you open, you can't accelerate to 300km/h, it just doesn't happen.

"And Franco just didn't look behind, so Franco was just downright dangerous.

"Simeon found himself in the same situation I think, he's a little bit more to the inside, but basically you have three guys in the braking area and you just can't do that.

"It would've been very close between me and [Takaaki] Nakagami, who made it through in the end. But, not to be."

The penalties mean Vinales will start the race from 13th, while Morbidelli will line up 19th on the grid.