Source: MotoGP.

Australia’s Broc Parkes played a leading role in the flag-to-flag Assen round of the MotoGP World Championship, starting on slicks after a warm-up lap crash that forced him to revert to his ‘dry’ bike.

The Paul Bird Motorsport rookie started from pit lane alongside Valentino Rossi, and while all other riders were forced to come in and change tyres after just a handful of laps, Parkes was able to remain on track after surviving the early laps without incident.

Parkes lapped as high as sixth on laps eight and nine in a valiant effort, but was soon passed by the factory bikes before finishing a respectable 11th.

That performance is the best-ever result for the PBM team on their home-built chassis. It is Parkes’ second point-scoring finish and he now sits above Danilo Petrucci (Octo IodaRacing Team) and Hector Barbera (Avintia Racing) in the standings.

“What a crazy race, I crashed on the warm up lap when somebody clipped my handlebar at the hairpin so I got back to the pits for my spare bike with slick tyres and had to start from pit lane,” Parkes explained.

“At the start it was still raining and I was even going to pull in because I was really slow but then the track dried fast and I was pushing like crazy on the slick tyres in the wet corners as I could see I was catching everyone. I would really like to thank the team for all their hard work.”

Former World Supersport runner-up Parkes’ previous best result came at Qatar’s attrition-filled season opener, where he scored a single point for 15th.