Marc Marquez concluded his BritishGP almost before it had begun with the Repsol Honda crashing out at Silverstone’s Vale corner after contact with Pramac’s Jorge Martin.

“It’s easy to explain,” a despondent Marquez said from the paddock. “First of all I apologise to Martin and his team because was completely my mistake.

“Is true that it was a strange situation, because Quartararo and Martin went very wide, and then I expect or I predict that he will be more wide and then I was carrying a lot of speed. But then when I see that he was coming, I tried to slow down, but was too late. Was too late and then was a contact there, I was too optimistic maybe.

“I apologise to Martin because, for me, if I crash, I accept. I understand the mistake, but if I crash with another rider, makes me feel sad.”

Having spoken to Martin as soon as they both returned to the pits on Sunday afternoon, the Catalan is confident there were “no hard feelings”.

“Of course, he said to me. I mean we’ve had contact two corners before and it was the opposite way, He was inside and also he was optimistic and we had a contract but fortunately for both of us nothing happened on that contract. But then in two next corners was opposite and the contract created the crash. We speak friendly, lucky that both of us are okay and next race, we continue.”

Martin, it seems, agreed with his rival’s initial sentiment but believes there are lessons to be learnt.

“[The apology] is really good from his side but at the end he destroyed my race, and this is the main problem,” Martin explained. “He can destroy his own race but not the others. For sure he didn’t measure in a good way, because he thought there was space and for sure there wasn’t. I hope he can learn from this one and improve for the future.”

Until the crash put paid to his race, the eight-time world champion was enjoying a stellar weekend at Silverstone - despite a 170mph crash at Maggotts in Friday morning which resulted in him needing hospital attention to clean sand from his eye.

Strong pace across the practices translated to fifth on the grid - although his new team-mate Pol Espargaro claimed the pole position - and expectations were high for the 20-lap battle. Overall, Marquez remains positive about the British trip and eager for more in Spain in a fortnight’s time, but is resolute about learning from his mistakes.

“I feel great this weekend, was a great weekend. In terms of feeling on the bike, I was able to be competitive, the lap-time arrive, so this was good. Now it’s coming Aragon. Let’s see if there we can do another step.

“So a good weekend but today I prefer to think about my mistake because I don’t like these kind of mistakes and today I did it,” Marquez concluded.