Marc Marquez was disqualified from the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix on Sunday.

Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has conceded that it was a misinterpretation of the regulations by he and HRC that caused his mistake and subsequent disqualification at Sunday’s Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix.

Marquez and Australian Bryan Staring suffer the black flag penalty, after missing the brief window for compulsory pit stops on laps nine and 10.

Marquez was well-placed in the race, but for leaving his pit stop one lap too late outside the required pit window, and looked certain of his 15th rostrum finish of the year as he ran with the leading pair until the penalty was applied.

It was the result of a team misunderstanding of the hastily rewritten rules, altered on race eve then again on race morning, over the method of counting the laps. Click here for the final pre-race update.

Disqualification meant a zero points score at a race where the 20-year-old Spaniard had a mathematical chance of securing the world championship at his first attempt, and cut his lead over race winner Jorge Lorenzo from 43 to 18 points.

“Today was our first experience of a flag-to-flag race and suffice to say it wasn’t a good one,” Marquez said. “My team and I had set out a strategy and we thought that we could come in after lap 10, but in reality this counts as an extra lap.

“We hadn’t had that in mind and this was a huge mistake. We had everything well planned and I followed the instructions on my pit board. You learn from these things though, so now we have to move on and focus on the race in Japan.”

With two rounds remaining, he will have to be sure of strong results in Motegi and Valencia if he is to succeed in what, before this misfortune, seemed almost a certainty – becoming the youngest premier-class world champion in history.