Marc Marquez hits back at critics: “I was angry, show respect to other riders”

Marc Marquez was angered by critics who claimed his rivals are not racing him hard enough, following his narrow win at the Dutch MotoGP.

The factory Ducati rider has been favourite to fight for wins each weekend all year so far, with Marc Marquez now 68 points clear in the championship after taking a double victory at Assen.

But in recent weeks some of Marquez’s rivals, chiefly younger brother Alex Marquez - who is second in the standings - has taken criticism for what is being perceived as a different approach in racing the Ducati rider.

After his Dutch Grand Prix win, where he narrowly beat Marco Bezzecchi by 0.635s, Marquez hit back at these claims and called for “respect” for his rivals.

“It was really difficult,” he said of the challenge Bezzecchi gave him in the grand prix.

“And coming from this question, I want to say to the people that they need to respect all the riders because yesterday in the media scrum they start to say ‘ah, your brother didn’t attack you as the other riders’, and even some mechanics told me on social media people start to talk about things.

“And today Marco, why didn’t he attack me? In the end, if the front rider is in a very equal level, in this race track that is super narrow, you cannot attack the front riders.

“So, yesterday I defended Alex in the best way possible and today I defended Marco in the best way possible.

“And I knew that they were faster in that Turn 11/12, which is the fastest area and the narrowest area, narrow corners, and then if you are on the good line they cannot attack you.

“And I was just strong on the brake points, so I defended in a very good way. And in that way, I took 37 points.

“But one more time: respect the MotoGP riders because all of them defend their colours, defend their teams and all the grid wants to win, but the problem is only one can win.”

He added to TNT Sports: “[On Saturday] I was angry. People must respect the other riders.”

Friday crashes prompted Marc Marquez to race new Ducati aero

Marc Marquez raced the new version Ducati’s aerodynamic fairing at the Dutch Grand Prix, which he says was a result of him crashing on the old one in FP1.

Asked if he set up his bike to defend on Sunday, the championship leader explained: “It’s just my base set-up.

“Honestly speaking I raced with exactly the same set-up as Mugello. We didn’t touch anything.

“Just the biggest difference was the aerodynamics, but it was just because I crashed with one bike in FP1, on the third lap, and then I jumped to the second bike with the new aero.

“I get used to it and I said ‘ok, we keep it’, because one of my strong points of my riding style is getting used to the situation and getting used to the bike.

“Then of course in Sachsenring we will come back [to the standard aero] and retry again because it’s not very clear that it’s better or worse.

“But apart from that, my base set-up from Thailand to here didn’t change a lot. We did a step in Mugello and we kept the same step here.”