---
title: "Satisfying conclusion to mixed home round for van der Mark"
canonical: "https://readmotorsport.com/2017/04/30/satisfying-conclusion-mixed-home-round-van-der-mark/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "Lewis Duncan"
section: "SBK"
published: "2017-04-30T14:38:02Z"
modified: "2017-04-30T14:38:27Z"
---

# Satisfying conclusion to mixed home round for van der Mark

Pata Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark is thrilled to cap off his home round in Assen with a fighting fourth place after crashing out of Saturday’s encounter.

Saturday proved a difficult day for the home hero, an average qualifying performance leaving him eighth and contact with his team-mate at Turn 1 dropping him further down the order. Trying to recover lost ground, he tumbled off in the opening stages.

![Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images Sport](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2017/04/674819910.jpg)

Starting from 11th, van der Mark had his work cut out, but a strong showing in morning warm-up had him confident of a good result. Scything his way through the pack in the early stages, the Yamaha rider soon found himself bearing down on Ducati’s Chaz Davies.

Lapping faster than the Welshman, a podium looked possible. But a huge moment exiting Turn 11 and a change in balance had him rethinking his strategy.

“I am pretty happy with that,” enthused the Dutchman.

“I did what I could and I was happy with my race pace. Every time I overtook a rider I made it stick.

“I was closing on Chaz Davies, then I had a couple of scary moments at one of the fastest points of the track. It is one of my strongest points at this circuit, so I knew I could make up a lot of time there.

“But by then the win had changed and the bike was maybe balanced a little too much towards the rear, so the front was in the air. I had a big wobble, after that I decided to do my own race as I had a big gap to the rider behind.”

![](https://media.readmotorsport.com/readmotorsport/2017/04/YFCV3FSUE1N9VAB8AZ3F-1.jpg)

Though setting a blistering pace, van der Mark’s afternoon was far from trouble free. He took a knock to his arm in his race one crash and was left in quite a significant amount of discomfort, which affected him in the closing stages of Sunday’s outing.

“To be honest, after yesterday’s crash, the last four or five laps I had so much pain in my arm,” he admitted.

“The Doctors did a great job to give me some painkillers which allowed me to race, and if you had said I would get fourth position before the race, I would have taken this very happily.”

Team-mate Alex Lowes also crashed out of the first race and started today’s encounter from 15th. Not totally happy with the set-up of his YZF-R1, not helped by two big falls on Friday, Lowes valiantly fought his way through to complete the top five.