Marquez: Rossi is still my idol
Marc Marquez reiterated his claim that Valentino Rossi is his 'idol' after the pair clashed in the Argentina MotoGP, with Marquez crashing out on the penultimate lap.
Movistar Yamaha rider Rossi went on to clinch his second victory of the season, extending his lead at the top of the championship to six points over Andrea Dovizioso, with Marquez dropping to fifth in the standings, 30 points behind.
The Repsol Honda rider opted to run with the hard option rear tyre rather than the extra-hard compound used by Rossi and although his advantage of 4.3 seconds was slashed by the nine-time world champion in the final laps, Marquez says he would have been capable of fighting with the Yamaha rider 'until the end'.
"Fortunately I'm ok. It was just a bit scary in the beginning because I had so much pain in my stomach," Marquez said.
"It's a shame what happened, because we were having a good race. It was really interesting, because our tyre choice was different from Valentino's, because I knew that it would have been impossible to beat him with the [same] harder compound.
"So I took a risk, pushed at the beginning and opened a gap. The strategy was working out well for us - it's just a pity about the last two laps. When I saw that he was closing in on me, I decided to save the tyres a little.
"On the final laps I went back in the low 1'39s and knew we would be fighting to the end. But when he passed me - you saw on the video what happened," he added.
"Valentino is Valentino and it is difficult to beat him. I've always said that he's my idol and my reference, so you always learn things from him.
"Now I'm already thinking about Jerez. I already understand what happened here. So in Jerez I will do my best and try to recover points. There are still many races and anything can happen."
To compound a miserable weekend for the Repsol Honda team, Hiroshi Aoyama also failed to finish the race after he was knocked off his machine at the final turn while holding 11th place by Danilo Petrucci.
Race Direction reviewed the incident and immediately docked a penalty point from Petrucci although the contact between Marquez and Rossi was deemed a racing incident and no further action was taken.
