Marquez: Our rivals are still a bit ahead of us

Honda’s Marc Marquez has admitted that his main rivals are a step ahead of him despite finishing Friday’s action ahead of the Dutch TT third overall.

With the weather set to rob the field of their vital fourth free practice session on Saturday, Marquez decided to begin working on race set-up in the first free practice session.

Wary of missing the cut to gain direct entry into Q2, Marquez wasted no time in the afternoon session in making sure he got himself into the top 10.

At one stage fastest in the session with a 1m33.782s, Marquez was shuffled back to third by championship leader Maverick Vinales and Tech3’s Jonas Folger by the chequered flag. Six tenths off the pace, the Honda rider knows he still has work to do.

“With the wind, conditions were quite tricky today, but ultimately I’m happy enough with how it went,” he said.

“This morning we worked a bit more for the race pace, while in the afternoon, when a few drops started to fall, we almost immediately went for a time attack.

“In the end we did quite a good session, but our rivals are still a bit ahead of us.”

The problem Marquez has highlighted as Honda’s issue at Assen is stability, something which up till now has typically been a strength of the 2017 RC213V. Adding to the issue is the fact that Yamaha seem to have a stable motorcycle around the 2.89-mile Dutch circuit

“Stability is one of the things that we have been quite happy about since (the start of the) season,” he told Autosport.com.

“But here there are fast corners, also it’s really windy, and the bike is shaking a lot, especially the front.

“(I’m riding a) little bit careful at the moment, because I can’t have a similar crash like in Le Mans.

“We are trying to understand this point, but it is difficult because Ducati is also shaking a little bit, but the problem is that Yamaha is very stable.

“But I think we have another strong point and we need to work there.”