Zarco stops 'before something bad happened'

While Fabio Quartararo, who recently underwent arm pump surgery, was on his way to a podium finish in the Dutch MotoGP, countryman Johann Zarco was pulling out of the race due to the same condition.

But the factory KTM rider is sure it was a one-off and ruled out any surgical intervention.

"Not at all. I will not do any surgery," Zarco said. "This is not the solution and I never had this problem before. I’m not relaxed enough on the bike.

"I do not want to do this kind of operation. The worst thing is motocross for arm-pump. The top guys are not doing the operation.

"Fabio did it but he is younger and this is his choice. I will not do that, but I will improve myself and find a solution to be back on the top."

Zarco had risen from 15th to tenth in the early part of the Assen race, only to drop to last position by the time he retired on lap 17 of 26.

"It is a hard track for all the riders I think, because I got these problems before, but I was able to manage it the last two years [with Yamaha]," Zarco explained. "This year it was worse because the bike was moving in many other places.

"The good thing was the first ten laps and to be able to catch the others with pace and be able to overtake as a racer. But at the moment there is too much compensation which is destroying me.

"I did a few mistakes and had to stop. I had the feeling I was not holding the bike any more and before something bad happened I had to stop."

Zarco now hopes he will have no repeat of the issue at the Sachsenring this weekend: "It is a totally different track."

Team manager ike Leitner said: "Johann did well in the beginning and was in the group fighting for tenth position but then dropped away dramatically. So we’ll have to analyse what happened but I could see there were riders with other brands that were suffering on track."

Team-mate Pol Espargaro battled a hand injury on his way to eleventh place.