MotoGP champion Marc Marquez has explained the cause of a༒ nasty highside inꦆ the opening minutes of Friday practice for the German Grand Prix.

The Repsol Honda star, chasing an incredible nine wins in a row this weekend, was launched from his RCV while at full lean on the long, slo🐓w left hand second turn of the Sachsenring circuit.

The young Spaniard landed hard on his head, causing neck pain, and was slow to get to his feet. However the 21-year-old was back on track by the middle stages of FP1 and finished the ses💜sion in sixth.

"Definitely no injury. Yes big pain in the neck, but it is not a problem on the bike as you could see in FP2 when I was able to do a good rhythm and many laps. Maybe I feel a little tired now but tom🐈orrow should be better," Marquez told the official MotoGP website.

"It was a bit strange for me to understand what happened at first, but we checked the data and it was complet🌞ely my fault. I was going through turn two in second gear and then I didn't know but I touched the gear lever and ac🐻cidentally selected third gear.

"At that moment I was full lean and not❀ ready, so when it engaged I had the highside."

Marquez went on to lead most of the afternoon session, only losing the top spot to Aleix Espargaro when the Forward Yamaha rider fitted the special Open class soft rear tyre at the very end of the sessioཧ꧒n.

Marquez's team-mate Dani Pedrosa also suffꦯered a big Friday ac🐟cident, losing the front of his RCV in the afternoon session.