Dani Pedrosa battled rookie Repsol Ho𓃲nda team-mate Marc Marquez for victory for most 🅷of Sunday's Austin MotoGP, but couldn't go the distance.

The pair had been evenly matched, Pedrosa overtaking the pole sitter at turn one, then being re-passed by Marquez on lap 13 o🧜f 21.

But a small mistake by a 'tirin๊g' Pedrosa effec♏tively ended the content with three laps to go, allowing Marquez to pull away and make history as MotoGP's youngest winner.

"I'm happy with this second place," said Pedrosa. "We had great pace, even though we knew that Marc was very strong. There were no tactics. I tried to ride my own race but in the end I was losing a lot of time on the ch🗹icanes.

"I was tiring physically. I had some pain in my left arm and I could 👍not handle the bike well - especially in the first part of the 🦩circuit.

"The footpegs were also slippery on the way to the grid. I don't know why. They tried to clean them for the start but my foot was still sliding a lot so I was a little caref🍸ul to push with my legs in the chicanes.

"In the second sect✱ion of the track I was recovering quite a lot of time, but it was not eﷺnough.

"Furthermore, in one of the three laps before the ꧙end I made a mistake, lost around 1.5 seconds and Marc was able to ge𓆏t away. That was the point at which the race was lost for me.

"Still, I'm happy with the bike, my riding was pretty good today and I have improved compared with Qata𒁏r. I have to congratulate Marc as well, the Superstar of the season. Now we need to focus on Jerez - a circuit I like a lot."

Sunday marked Pedrosa's first podium of the season ⭕after a fourth place during round one in Qatar, when he also finished one place behind 🌱his new team-mate.