Marc Marquez returns for Dutch GP after "bruising" German MotoGP round

The Honda rider withdrew from the German GP having crashed five times at the Sachsenring, the final of his accidents resulting in him suffering a small fracture in his hand.

But he will make his return at this weekend's round in Assen with the hopes of "putting the hard weekend in Germany behind me" after what the team called a "bruising" round.

He will be joined at the factory Honda squad by Iker Lecuona, who replaces an injured Joan Mir.

In a press release ahead of the weekend, Marquez said: "I arrive in Assen looking to put the hard weekend in Germany behind me.

"We have one more race before the summer break and the objective is to gather a lot of good data for the engineers so they can work over these next weeks.

"This is the focus for the weekend, we need to remain calm and approach the weekend with a clear plan."

Marquez has won twice at Assen in the premier class – in 2014 and 2018 – and has only finished off the podium there once, in 2021, which was his last visit to the circuit.

The Spaniard's bruising weekend in Germany began when he crashed in FP2 pushing for a lap time to get into Q2 and wiped out Pramac's Johann Zarco as he exited the pitlane.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team crash

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Both riders were unharmed in the incident, but locked horns as Marquez apportioned blame on Zarco.

On Saturday, Marquez crashed three times across both qualifying sessions, leaving him seventh on the grid.

While briefly running fifth in the 15-lap sprint later that day, several early warnings on his Honda led him to back off and he plummeted to 11th.

He later said that the risks he was taking didn't justify the results, given the crashes he had already had.

On Sunday morning in the 10-minute warm-up session, Marquez suffered his fifth crash of the Germany weekend when he was flicked from his Honda going through Turn 6.

LCR Honda will be missing Alex Rins, who suffered a broken right leg in a crash during the MotoGP Italian Grand Prix sprint race at Mugello.

The former Suzuki rider is set to be replaced by Honda test rider Stefan Bradl.