BRILLIANT MARQUEZ EXTENDS MOTOGP LEAD WITH SECOND PLACE AT ASSEN

Repsol Honda Team rider finishes runner-up in a chaotic Dutch TT, increasing his lead in the overall standings.

The first premier class in the history of the Dutch TT to be held on a Sunday saw Marc Marquez at his brilliant best. The Repsol Honda Team rider handled the difficult conditions faced by the MotoGP field at Assen to add 20 valuable points to his total, in a race won by surprise victor Jack Miller.

After 14 laps of the race, a rainstorm forced the red flag out. Following the restart, Marc Marquez took advantage of a crash for Valentino Rossi and problems for Jorge Lorenzo, finishing second and increasing his points total to 145. He ends the Dutch TT 24 ahead of Lorenzo and 42 ahead of Rossi. Pedrosa is fourth, with 86 points.

Marc Marquez: “Today’s race was one of those in which you can either lose many points or gain them, and you can face it with two mentalities: either you take a risk to gain a bigger advantage, or you focus on finishing the race in order to lose the fewest points possible. The latter is the mentality that the team repeated to me about forty times between this morning, and it is exactly what I did. I tried to stay in the top five so as not to drop many points to Valentino [Rossi] and attempted to not make mistakes in order to finish the race.

At the beginning of the first race I didn’t feel comfortable and lost touch, but then I was able to recover. I think that stopping the race was a good decision, because it was very dangerous out there. In the second race I started off thinking about pushing a bit more, but everyone was very fast and I decided not to follow Rossi and Dovizioso because they were going too quickly. However, both of them crashed later on.

When I saw Jack (Miller) stalking behind me, I knew that he would be going for his first win so I preferred to let him pass and keep a couple of seconds gap between us, as well as a cushion to third place. I did that because with Jorge [Lorenzo] so far back and Rossi out of the race, second place was as good as a victory. In the end, we leave Assen with a bigger lead.

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MARC MARQUEZ, TO CONSOLIDATE THE LEADERSHIP IN ‘THE CATHEDRAL’

Marc Marquez gets to the Dutch Grand Prix with the goal of maintaining the positive momentum after the great race he completed in the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

After achieving the podium in Catalunya a fortnight ago, Marc Marquez gets to Assen, Netherlands, a circuit with such a long motorcycling tradition that it has earned the nickname “The Cathedral.” The Cervera rider is leading the World Championship standing with 125 points and this is a good circuit for him where he has achieved four victories across all classes and two MotoGP podiums.

Marc Marquez: “We’ve had two weekends off after Catalunya, and it has been good to be able to disconnect a bit, spending a little time with my friends and enjoying the amazing experience of doing some laps on the RC213V-S at the Red Bull Ring last Tuesday. Anyway, I’m happy that the time to go racing at Assen has arrived, as it’s a track I really enjoy and, importantly, the first in a series of circuits that suit my riding style quite well! Step by step, we’re making some small improvements to the bike, so in Assen we’ll keep working hard from the first session to find a good setup and try and fight for the podium again. The weather is particularly unpredictable there, so we’ll keep an eye on that also and try to be fast from the beginning of the weekend”.

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MARQUEZ REGAINS MOTOGP STANDINGS LEAD

Raceday at the Catalan GP began with an emotional minute’s silence in memory of Luis Salom and culminated in an exciting MotoGP race, in which Marc Marquez finished second. The three riders on podium paid tribute to Salom -who died on Friday following an accident in practice- on the podium.

Overtaking moves were exchanged at the start of the race, before Rossi and Marquez settled in at the front with Pedrosa close behind. Three laps from the end, Marquez pushed for victory, but after several changes of position with the Italian, a mistake on the penultimate lap led to him settling for a positive second position. With this result, Marquez returns to the top of the World Championship standings with 125 points, 10 more than Jorge Lorenzo –who failed to finish after a collision with another rider.
The positive end to a difficult weekend for the MotoGP paddock was a handshake between Marquez and Rossi at the conclusion of the race.

Marc Marquez: “It has been a hard weekend for all the riders, but in the end I think that together we paid tribute to Luis Salom with the Sunday that he deserved. It was a nice race with Valentino. I was suffering a little with the increase in temperature and was never completely comfortable, so I was unable to try overtaking at the right time. I had a couple of scares and started doing the math for the standings in my head, knowing that Jorge Lorenzo was out of the race, and I think that in the end, a podium finish is a very positive result for the Championship. Another thing that’s important for motorcycle racing is that Valentino and I shook hands; it was probably the weekend and the right situation to do so”.

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MÁRQUEZ MOTIVATED WITH DE HOME GP

Marc Marquez has two victories at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya: One in 125cc in 2010 and one in MotoGP in 2014. Cervera rider look to carry the positive momentum of Mugello over to Catalan GP this weekend.

The MotoGP World Championship returns to the Iberian Peninsula this weekend to celebrate the seventh round of the year, after a thrilling race a fortnight ago in Italy. The event at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will be a special one for Marc Marquez, who will be competing in front of his home fans. Marquez lies second in the World Championship with 105 points -10 points off the lead. He has finished on the podium at 5 of the last 6 Catalan GPs (spread over 125cc, Moto2 and MotoGP races).

Marc Marquez: “There’s nothing like racing at home in front of your crowd and your fan club to make you feel good and give you extra motivation, even if in the end you must try and be as professional as always and to completely focus on the job at hand. We’ll see how it goes there, and as always we’ll work hard on the bike setup in order to make the most of what we have, an approach that has worked well enough so far. I know that Honda is working at 100% and at Montmeló we’ll give our best to get another good result. Then at the Monday post-race test we’ll see if we’re able to find that half a tenth that could help us a lot, as we were able to do last year on the same occasion“.

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