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Marquez: Second “like a victory” after Rossi crash
Marc Marquez says his second place in the Dutch TT at Assen feels like a victory after he extended his MotoGP points lead on a disastrous day for his main rivals.
Jamie Klein
Edited: Jun 26, 2016, 3:57 PM
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Marquez lost out in the closing stages of the wet, two-part thriller to a charging Jack Miller, who went on to record a first-ever premier class win for himself and his Marc VDS Honda team.
Meanwhile, factory Yamaha riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo both had a race to forget, the former crashing out of the lead not long after the restart and the latter struggling to a dismal 10th in the tricky conditions.
After being passed by Miller, Marquez admitted he was happy to just bank the points for second, extending his lead over Lorenzo to 24 points and pulling 42 clear of Rossi.
“Today was the race to lose points,” said the two-time champion. “All the team was saying, 40 times or more, ‘please finish the race!’
“In the second [part of the] race Valentino pushed a lot, I said 'okay, I cannot follow him'. I did my own race, no stress or panic.
“Valentino pushed really hard, in two laps he opened [a lead of] two or three seconds. He was incredibly fast. I was pushing also, but inside my limit.
“But when I saw that he crashed, and Lorenzo was [far] behind, I saw that Miller was behind me and when he passed me, I just follow him.
“This second place is like a victory, because it was really critical conditions and these 20 points will be really important at the end of the championship.”
For his part, Miller revealed Marquez told him he had backed off to protect his points lead in the wake of Rossi and Lorenzo’s problems.
“I almost rolled off [the pace],” said the Australian. “He’d seen where Lorenzo was and where Valentino was, so he’d rolled off not to take any risks chasing down some stupid Australian.
“He left me out the front there, and I could see on the TV at Turn 5 how big the gap was. Even rolling off, you can’t go to sleep, so I just tried to keep focused.”
From the editor, also read:
- Miller says Assen win answers critics who “badmouthed us”
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