Despite now boasting a 67-point lead at the top of the MotoGP World Championship, Marc Marquez has said that the mentality is attack to defend after his second place finish in Misano.

The World Champion can now finish third in every race and still wrap up his fifth MotoGP title in six years. Despite that, Marquez said that for him the best way to defend is to attack.

“I am pushing every weekend. I pushed in Austria until the last lap. I pushed here and in Brno. I pushed but never controlled,” the said the 25-year-old.

“I am pushing and we are working and every Thursday we think we will win the race. Then during the weekend we will see, but the mentality is attack to defend. What I cannot do is just do a stupid mistake, I need to manage.

“Today I tried to push and in Austria I pushed a lot until the last lap and in Aragon I will push again. If we cannot win, we then need to finish on the podium all the races, so this is my target.”

Marquez benefitted from Jorge Lorenzo’s penultimate lap spill to promote him from third to second, but he didn’t expect to ever really be able to challenge for the win, especially with the increased temperatures.

“In the warm up I was fast, but I already knew that for the race with more temperature then you have less grip on the corner. I cannot carry the same corner speed and then the difference on the straight is even bigger,” he said.

“I tried to follow then and to be aggressive on the first laps because I knew Jorge and Dovi had something more, but today Dovi was riding perfect. I was losing a lot in the two main accelerations but then I was able to recover on the braking points.

“But over 27 laps like this its difficult but even like this I managed well and then when I see that Dovi was going away I tried to be behind Jorge to attack him at the end, but honestly speaking I was on the limit. I was pushing too much in some areas but then when you never give up, sometimes you get something and this time we got 20 points.

“We arrived here 59 points in front and we go from Misano with 67 points, so happy. And now we are going to Aragon, which is a racetrack that I like.”

With the race seemingly wrapped up for Dovizioso, Lorenzo managed to take nearly a second out of his team-mate with just two laps to go. With Lorenzo gaining time hand over fist, did Marquez think he was going to get a chance to fight for the win on the final lap?

“No, I said I would stay with him in case Jorge arrive and he tries something and then maybe I can take advantage, but honestly I was just following Ducati’s I couldn’t overtake them,” he said.

“Just when I overtook Jorge it was because he made a mistake and went wide and then I overtake him. Then we fight for three or four laps because I was aggressive in that area. But when I follow them I cannot overtake because I loose too much and then I try to recover.

“Luckily for us they come very strong in the second part of the season, so we have 67 points advantage we need to manage. If they gain five points every race no problem but we need to manage.”