Honda rider Marc Marquez took a sixth place finish in the Italian Grand Prix, starting strong but then finding himself struggling with the front tyre.

After a DNF in Le Mans the race before, Marquez concentrated on the long game in Tuscany - keeping it on the road to take the points and looking to improve next time out at his second home GP of the year in Barcelona.

"I started the race strong because I knew the first laps were important, so I tried to fight." He said

"At first I was able to do it, but after a while I started struggling with the front tyre in the corners, and I was also getting caught on the straight by the others. We chose the medium front spec because we knew that with the hard option, which I felt better with, we wouldn’t have finished the race."

"In fact, with the hard front option being asymmetric, in this case the medium spec was harder on the right side than the hard spec, and the Mugello track stresses the right side more." He added " But at a certain point, I started feeling I was struggling too much in the corners, so I decided to stay there and not risk crashing. The situation allowed us to finish sixth. This is an up-and-down championship, so we must keep working hard and look to improve."