Marc Marquez was a calculated second in Japan.

Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez rode to a strategic second place at Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix, preferring not to risk his world championship lead in pitched battle, with just one round remaining for a tense final decider.

The world championship battle will be decided at the final race for the first time since Repsol Honda rider Nicky Hayden defeated Valentino Rossi at Valencia in 2006.

Stormy weather posed an extra challenge for former 125 and Moto2 World Champion Marquez, whose blazing rookie season in the premier class has brought him tantalisingly close to a maiden MotoGP World Championship.

With no previous experience of the RC213V at the Honda-owned circuit, the severe lack of dry practice cost him vital set-up time.

Even so he challenged for the lead mid-race, before deciding that a safe 20 points would be the wiser choice.

“Second place today is a very good result,” Marquez said. “After my crash in warm-up, I knew that it would be difficult to be consistent, because in the morning I hadn’t managed that either.

“This was my first time at this track with a MotoGP bike and in practice I was unable to get any references in the dry, leaving me with only the warm-up and the race in which to find my way.

“I saw that Jorge was a little stronger than us here and I had a couple of scary moments, making me decide that 20 points and the gap being reduced by only five points would be a decent result.

“There is only one race remaining – the most important of the year – so we shall try to be more focused than ever at Valencia.”

With his lead now at 13 points, should Lorenzo win at the final round in two weeks, Marquez must be no lower than third if he is to win the crown at his first attempt.

Aside from the Australian mishap, Marquez has been on the rostrum at every race bar one, and amassed a total of six race wins, including four in a row.

All year he has been breaking ‘youngest-ever’ records, but even if it all goes wrong at Valencia and he has to wait one more year, he will still be in line to be youngest-ever premier-class world champion, provided he ties it up before the end of October.

The previous youngest champion was Honda rider Freddie Spencer, in 1983.