The summer break couldn't have come at a better time for 2021 MotoGP World Champion Fabio Quartararo after ending his MotoGP Dutch TT with an elbow injury to go with his damaged ankle at Assen.

The Frenchman began the weekend on the literal back foot after suffering a sprained ankle and broken toe in a fall while running in Amsterdam ahead of Round 8.

Despite that, Quartararo enjoyed his strongest start to a MotoGP event in 2023 after qualifying a competitive fourth on the grid before finishing there on the road in the Sprint Race. That was then upgraded to a third place result after Brad Binder was penalised for track limit violations on the final lap.

Buoying him for the full-length GP, Quartararo jokes that the prospect of landing a strong result in excess of where Yamaha has generally been circulating in 2023 made him determined to get the 'perfect' launch off the line, only to then make a terrible getaway.

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"I made a mistake at the start," he admits. "Sometimes you want to do things too perfect. I didn‘t want just a normal start, I wanted perfect, but then I got a totally bad start. So I lost a lot of positions!"

Worse was to follow for Quartararo though when in his efforts to make up ground on lap two, he lost the front of his Yamaha M1 at Turn 7, wiping both himself and Johann Zarco - who was on his outside attempting to line up a pass into Turn 8 at the time - out of the race.

The tangle left Quartararo with a twisted elbow which he admits to being 'very painful' before adding he will likely undergo surgery in the next few days.

"I crashed and I twisted my elbow, so I have to keep it in a sling for the time being. These things happen. The elbow won‘t take so long to heal. The foot will have to be checked further. Normally I would have to have surgery on the toe. I will be in a little bit of pain for a few weeks.

"I tried to ride like this morning [fastest in warm-up] and catch them, but I lost the front. Right now, it‘s pretty painful."

Despite the ailments, Quartararo was pleased to end a run of miserable form that has seen him struggling in the mid-field for much of the year.

"But if you take out of consideration what I have going on now on the left side of my body, it was a positive weekend: great qualifying, great sprint race, great speed. I take this as a positive weekend.

"Even though I‘m injured, I have ridden at my best level."