Source: Supplied.

Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez has taken the blame for his first DNF of the season after crashing out of Phillip Island’s Michelin Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon.

The Spaniard was leading the race by 2.5 seconds ahead of fellow Honda rider and eventual winner Cal Crutchlow when he lost the front into turn four, forcing him out of contention altogether.

“First of all I want to say sorry to my team because I made a mistake today,” Marquez said. “We were doing everything perfectly and we were just missing capping it with a result on Sunday. If I had been fighting for the title it would’ve been an entirely different race, as I wouldn’t have risked so much.

“Today I started strong because I knew I had to make a difference at the beginning. I was maintaining the distance, but at one of the hard braking points I braked too late and instead of taking a wider line, which is what I had been doing throughout the year, I tried to keep going. In such cases the limit is a fine one.

“We remain happy of course because we had already won the title, but of course we wanted to win more races. It was completely my mistake – during the whole season I’ve been very careful on the braking points and this time I risked more so this crash has nothing to do with the Michelin tyres. Now we have another race next week and we’ll just think about that. Congratulations to Cal for his great victory.”