Marc Marquez’s brilliant and very important second-place finish in one of the trickiest races in recent years was enhanced by the amazing debut win of Honda satellite rider Jack Miller, who perfectly mastered the second part of the Dutch TT. The lottery that is a MotoGP race run in such challenging conditions ruled out a possible podium finish for Dani Pedrosa, who finished in 12th position after crashing on the first lap of the race’s weather-prompted restart.

The Assen TT originally started approximately one hour after a strong 15-minute downpour had heavily drenched the track. Marc had chosen a hard rear rain tyre, while Dani opted for the softer version. That proved to be the better solution, so although Marc managed to keep a decent enough pace to maintain fourth position in the race’s first phase, Dani was able to steadily recover ground from the back after the rain started again. He had just overtaken his teammate when the conditions became so difficult that Race Direction decided to put out the red flag on lap 15. That meant that the new grid position for the remaining 12-lap race was determined by the classification of the previous lap—lap 14—with Marc in fifth and Dani sixth.

Race 2 got off at 3 p.m., and both Repsol Honda riders went out on the Michelin soft rear rain spec. Marquez started well, entering the first corner first, but he ran wide shortly after and dropped back to third behind Andrea Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi. After the two Italians fell ahead of him and Miller caught and then overtook him, Marc wisely settled for the 20 crucial points that come with second place, thereby extending his championship lead to 24 points over Jorge Lorenzo and 42 over Rossi.

Like many others, Dani was betrayed by the tricky conditions and crashed on the first lap after the restart. He determinedly re-joined the race and was able to finish in 12th, and  lies 4th in the standings 17 points down on Rossi.

Marc Marquez - 2nd

“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 today, 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."

Dani Pedrosa - 12th

“It's been a pretty tough weekend but races like today are a lottery. In the first race it seemed that the strategy of running the soft tyre had gone well. At first, when the track was drying, I went slowly, but when it started to rain I upped my pace very quickly while others were at a disadvantage. However, that was when the Race Direction decided to stop the race. I felt unlucky, because it turned out that thinking ahead or trying to pick a different strategy wasn’t beneficial. In the second race I crashed on the first lap, because I had a new rear tyre without too much grip. It has been a difficult Grand Prix but we will try to find better solutions for the next race and regain our feeling in order to go faster."




1   - MILLER Jack 43 AUS 25 Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 22'17.447
2   - MARQUEZ Marc 93 SPA 20 Repsol Honda Team Honda 1.991
3   - REDDING Scott 45 GBR 16 Octo Pramac Racing Ducati 5.906
4   - ESPARGARO Pol 44 SPA 13 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 9.812
5   - IANNONE Andrea 29 ITA 11 Ducati Team Ducati 17.835
6   - BARBERA Hector 8 SPA 10 Avintia Racing Ducati 18.692
7   - LAVERTY Eugene 50 IRE 9 Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati 22.605
8   - BRADL Stefan 6 GER 8 Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 23.603
9   - VINALES Maverick 25 SPA 7 Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 26.148
10 - LORENZO Jorge 99 SPA 6 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 27.604
11 - RABAT Tito 53 SPA 5 Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 1'21.830
12 - PEDROSA Dani 26 SPA 4 Repsol Honda Team Honda 1'54.369
13 - SMITH Bradley 38 GBR 3 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 3 laps
14 - BAUTISTA Alvaro 19 SPA 0 Aprilia Racing Team Gresini Aprilia 1 lap
15 - PIRRO Michele 51 ITA 0 Ducati Team Ducati 7 laps
16 - ROSSI Valentino 46 ITA 0 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 10 laps
17 - ESPARGARO Aleix 41 SPA 0 Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 10 laps
18 - DOVIZIOSO Andrea 4 ITA 0 Ducati Team Ducati 11 laps
19 - PETRUCCI Danilo 9 ITA 0 Octo Pramac Racing Ducati 11 laps
20 - CRUTCHLOW Cal 35 GBR 0 LCR Honda Honda Not Finished 1st Lap
21 - HERNANDEZ Yonny 68 COL 0 Aspar MotoGP Team Ducati Not Started