Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez says today’s start was his worst of the 2016 season as he was hit by a catalogue of problems just getting off the line.

The newly-crowned World Champion also admitted that with another couple of laps he would’ve been in a perfect place to win the final race of the season at Valencia, but had to settle for second behind Movistar Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo.

“Today was the worst start of this year,” he said “The problem I had with the clutch, it started spinning and then I lose many positions and I don’t know why, what happened, but with the bike comes with a big wheelie.

“I lost a lot of time in the beginning of the race I take a lot of time also to overtake Valentino and Iannone because like Valentino said yesterday it is really, really difficult to overtake the other riders here.

“I was trying to manage, trying to overtake them and I tried, but then the Ducati passed me on the straight. Our weak point has been the acceleration but we tried and when we opened a small gap I started to push like there was nothing to lose.

“I was catching Jorge but I was starting to see the laps that remained and the time, and I said ‘hmmm, will be difficult, but I will try’ and just at the end if we had two or three more laps…but really, no excuse the race is 30 laps and today Jorge did an incredible race.”

“Today I was focussed 100 per cent like a really important race because I like to finish the season in a good way, with a good feeling with the bike.”