Casey Stoner has suggested that increased levels of track safety are having an adverse effect on riding standards in the World Championship.
The former MotoGP champion believes the amount of run-off at modern circuits is encouraging riders to take unnecessary risks when battling with each other, and thinks they would be more circumspect if there was a greater danger of a mistake having painful consequences.
"I'm not really sure if the sport's taken the right direction," Stoner told reporters at Assen. "There's that much run-off now, and tarmac here, tarmac there. You run off, it's your fault, deal with it, or you're going to have a bit of a bump, or whatever.
"You saw the 125s [at Silverstone] basically using all the track, going off, coming back on, no drama. There's no fear in the riders anymore. They keep on going farther and farther and it's going to come to a point where everybody starts to really smash into each other – and that's kind of what we've seen with Moto2. It's become dangerous in that aspect – they have no respect for each other."
Valentino Rossi and Hiroshi Aoyama have both suffered injuries in recent MotoGP events, but Stoner said riders had to expect serious crashes during their careers.
"Everyone crashes; it's part of this sport," he said. "If you take away crashes and you take away fear, then the sport's completely different than what it used to be."