Ecstar Suzuki MotoGP rookie Joan Mir has called his long-lap penalty for nerfing off Johan Zarco during yesterday's Sepang MotoGP 'unfair'.

The two collided on lap 16 of the Malaysia race and Zarco ended up in the gravel with Mir picking up a late long-lap penalty from race direction which dropped him out of contention for a top-eight finish.

"I was coming from behind with better pace than the others and I was recovering distance.  I was trying to overtake as many riders as I could because I was not able to push so hard on the brakes because I was breathing so heavily and was difficult to finish the race," said Mir, speaking at the track.

"I was taking the inside in T13 to overtake Zarco and Miller because I was quite fast in the moment. I was on the inside, then Zarco tries to overtake Miller when he didn't see me that I was coming from the inside. It is normal, not his fault obviously.

We both touch, he crashed unfortunately, sorry for him, but was not my fault, was something that can happen in the race."

Mir pointed to incidents earlier in the season where he had been the victim of collisions with other rider and no penalties were handed out.

"If we look at the back, the problems that I had in Mugello with Valentino, in Brno with Zarco that he hit me on the first corner and my race was over, all these type of things, they didn't give nothing to them.

"To me, a long lap. Unfair, but what can I say, I am rookie, this was the most easy thing to do, 'ah Zarco crashed, we will give him a long lap'."