Repsol’s Marc Marquez was pretty vocal in his admonishing of Honda after another violent highside impacted his opening day of practice at the Assen TT.

The eight-time world champion concluded his initial preparation for the Dutch GP sixth in the combined times after rain hit the afternoon session and the Spaniard suffered a brutal turn 11 crash on his fifth lap. 

“First of all, I’m lucky to escape from that crash in a good way,” Marquez said bluntly from the Assen paddock this afternoon. “Of course I feel that I had a crash, I have some pain in the knees, pain in the foot, some pain in the elbow, but everything is okay to continue the same performance during the weekend.

“Today I feel better than what I expected here in Assen and in FP1 I was riding in an easy mode. In FP2 already, I go out and I say 'Okay, now it's time to do a step'. I was riding well. It's true that I was pushing in some parts of the circuit but specifically on that point, on that kind of corner, I was not riding over the limits - basically also because there was another rider in front of me and I was doing exactly the same as what he did or even slower. But I'm already pushing a lot, to HRC, because we cannot have these kind of crashes. In that kind of corner, we are against the electronics, but the electronics are there to avoid these crashes and the thing is that, only Honda riders have these kind of highsides - I mean in Portimao, Alex and Pol, here, me, it was a similar crash in 2020 in Jerez. 

“We already understand a bit but first of all what I did is check on the data, if I did something wrong, but this time, I was riding exactly in the same way as the previous lap, just the TC didn't keep the slide. It's something that we must understand for the future, because ‘for the future’ doesn't mean next year, it means this year. We need something, to be more safe, because if not, it’s impossible to take the confidence and be fast again. We need to understand the way to work with the electronics to avoid these kind of crashes. 

“Of course if you crash because you go in too fast in the corner, because you push too much with the front brake, because you lean too much the bike, then is a rider’s fault, but when you are doing exactly the same thing like the other lap, even less angle and you have the highside, then it’s because something's wrong and this is where we try to understand. 

“I'm pushing a lot [to HRC] that we need to improve, and not for the future, for the next race. Because in the end, if we want to ride at the limit, if we want to take the confidence with the bike, we cannot have these kind of crashes - they take a lot of your confidence because you don't know when you will crash again in that style. 

“They check already some things, some parameters that were not completely normal on that kind of corner, and they will try to adjust, but we need to keep working and continue, especially on the same level, because I was riding in a good way in FP2.

HRC brought new chassis for both factory riders to test throughout the Assen weekend, with Marquez, so far, the only rider to have provided any analysis, due in part, to the changeable weather conditions.

“I'm really happy with the job that HRC have done, because maybe it's the first time that I feel some potential for the future, some direction, some clear direction and I feel like it was working well. I need to compare more deeply during the weekend and in another racetrack but I feel not bad. I was happy, immediately, when I try, I saw some different riding style, different way to understand things and overall I like it but I want to confirm in the future.

“Luckily after the crash, the chassis was okay, so we plan to continue working with that chassis, together with the current one, to compare. Of course, the ideal situation in a race weekend is on Saturday, to have both bikes in the same conditions, but we know that we need to test things and we need to improve. To do this we need to compare again, so we have decided to have one bike and one bike to continue our work. Forget about the performance, or forget about finding the best result during the weekend and concentrate more to improve the bike for the future.”