Reigning MotoGP World Champion has denied Valentino Rossi’s theory that he always managed to put a Ducati between himself and his race rivals in qualifying to stop the top men getting a tow.

Rossi said earlier today he thinks Marquez is very clever as there usually seems to be either Andrea Iannone or Andrea Dovizioso behind him on a fast lap - never his team-mate Dani Pedrosa or the Movistar Yamahas

“Marquez is very clever as he always bring some Ducati with him. For him, is good if he have somebody between him and us. For sure, is clever. For sure, he doesn’t pull Jorge, or me or Dani, always a Ducati. Iannone was behind Marquez and Dovi was behind me, so is like this. Especially Iannone and Dovi did a good lap as you have to stay behind Marquez,” said The Doctor.

Marquez responded by saying that if one of the other top three was following, he would scrub the lap, but anyone else didn’t matter.

“No. It’s impossible to care about everybody and in the end you need to do your own qualifying and you just try to control your main opponents. Motorcycling has always been like that, everybody try to find a slipstream and the best one is from the fastest riders,” said Marquez.

“For me it’s normal, sometimes in Moto3 and Moto2 it’s too much but in MotoGP, it’s your decision to close the gas. If it’s Dani, Jorge or Valentino behind me, I will close but if it’s another rider, for me it doesn’t matter.”