Martin pulls out of Assen, Arenas to fill in

Martin suffered a hefty crash in Barcelona earlier this month, fracturing a pair of metacarpal bones on his right hand.

He underwent surgery after the crash and was recovering since then. The FIM doctors cleared him to race this weekend but Martin decided to take part in FP1 and FP2 before taking any decision.

The Spaniard finished 18th and 26th earlier today and made the decision to sit out of the remainder of the weekend to recover fully from injuries.

"After the first session, which was in the wet, I wanted to see how I felt in the dry in the second session," said Martin.

"For the amount of laps I managed the time is quite quick but I am still feeling quite a lot of pain in my hand and on a couple of occasions I couldn't use it properly.

"I couldn't finish the session so it is over to Albert Arenas to take my place here at Assen. I will have the rest of the weekend off but I am already looking forward to the next race in Germany.”

Arenas, who made two wildcard appearances with the Spanish squad this year, will take over the riding duties from Saturday.

The 19-year-old teen has so far secured a best finish of 18th in Moto3, recorded at his home turf in Barcelona earlier this year.

"We knew this could happen so the team had me travel to Assen in case Jorge couldn't ride. I prepared like I would for any race, just in case," Arenas said.

"It will be a shorter weekend than normal but we have to adapt. Tomorrow we will go out and try to improve and put in a good performance.”