‘I escaped without injuries’ - Marc Marquez survives Assen MotoGP round

Marc Marquez says the best he could aim for in the MotoGP Dutch Grand Prix was fifth, but was pleased to have “escaped from Holland without injuries”.

The factory Ducati rider came into the Dutch Grand Prix branding it a weekend of survival, with the fast right-handed layout not suiting his current physical condition.

He finished seventh in the sprint and sixth in the grand prix, though he was docked a place for exceeding track limits on the final lap.

But with Marco Bezzecchi crashing out and Jorge Martin only finishing third, Marc Marquez remains just 40 points off of the championship lead.

“I go out on the race, and I knew that my place was to finish sixth, seventh, eighth,” he said on Sunday.

“And it's true that looking at the race, the maximum was fifth place, but in the end, we finished seventh.

“The good thing is that we escaped from Holland without injuries, so this was my main target.”

Marquez was one of a handful of riders to run the soft rear tyre, which he says was because he wasn’t physically capable of pushing on the medium.

“Because I don't have the physical condition to take the maximum potential of the tyre on the laps,” he said when asked about his choice of soft rear.

“So then I said, ‘I will ride the bike slowly and just push single laps’. And to push single laps, the soft rear was better.”

“Racing incident” - Marquez reacts to Di Giannantonio clash

Marquez was forced to run through the final chicane after Fabio Di Giannantonio put an aggressive overtake on him, similar to a controversial move between himself and Valentino Rossi in 2015.

The stewards gave Di Giannantonio a long lap penalty for shortcutting the chicane, though he would still come through to fourth.

Commenting on the moment, Marquez said: “Well, in the end it was a race incident, because - as race direction said - that was a race incident, because DiGiannantonio got penalised, but not for the contact, because he cut the chicane.

“At least in 2015, I did the chicane.”

On the championship picture, with 63 points covering the top eight, Marquez said: “I mean, I feel like I'm not the strongest one, and I'm not the fastest one, but nobody wants to be the fastest one.

“So at the moment, it's five names in the championship that are fighting every race there.”