Dani Pedrosa battled rookie Repsol Honda team-mate Marc Marquez for victory for most of Sunday's Austi🧸n MotoGP, but couldn't go t⛦he distance.

The pair had been evenly matched, Pe♛drosa overtaking the pole sitter at turn one, then being re-passed by Marquez on lap 13 of 21.

🔯But a small mistake by a 'tiring' Pedrosa efꦕfectively 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﷽ rid🍌e my own race but in the end I was losing a lot of time on the chicanes.

"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 soꦬ I was a little careful to p🃏ush with my legs in the chicanes.

"In the second sectio🍌n of the track I was recovering qui🌜te a lot of time, but it was not enough.

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

"Still, I'm h♈appy with the bike, my riding was pretty good today and I have improved compared with Qatar. I have to congratulate Marc as well, the Superstar of the season. Now we need to focus on Jere🥀z - a circuit I like a lot."

Sunday marked Pedrosa's first podium of the season after a fourt꧂h place during round one in Qatar, when he also finished one place behi💧nd his new team-mate.