Marc Marquez will not soon forget this MotoGP race. After it looked as if everything was conspiring against him on the first two days at his beloved Sachsenring, the Spaniard pulled off a daring ride on Sunday. Starting from 13th place, he finished in second place and was able to celebrate on the MotoGP podium with his brother Alex Marquez for the first time.
“Thank you Sachsenring!” Marquez shouted into the microphone in the Parc Ferme immediately after the race to the German fans, who had once again set a record for spectators at the German GP this weekend. On this day, he was able to live with the fact that Francesco Bagnaia denied him his ninth MotoGP victory on his favorite track. The conditions had suggested much less. After a blockade by Honda wildcard Stefan Bradl, he only started from 13th place. And yet the Spanish superstar fought his way up to second place, just as he had done in Le Mans and Barcelona. How was this comeback in the main race possible?
Marc Marquez fit again: Was able to ride in ‘Marquez mode’
A fundamental point here was Marquez’s state of health. In training on Friday, the The Gresini rider broke his left index finger and suffered several bruises in the chest area in a violent crash in the waterfall curve T11. Marquez suffered a lot of pain in qualifying and the sprint and was unable to get back on the track. But this changed on Sunday. “I woke up today and immediately felt much better. I came into the garage and told my team that I could ride aggressively again today – in Marquez mode,” he reported. “The finger wasn’t a problem yesterday, but today my ribs didn’t bother me in the race either. The medicine helped.”
In addition to his better physical condition, Marquez also chose the right approach in the German GP. “I went into the race with the mindset of not putting too much stress on my tires. I didn’t want to panic and overdo it just because it’s difficult to overtake here,” the Spaniard reflected, and he was spot on. His cautious approach pushed him further and further ahead as the race progressed, as some of his competitors had pushed the tires too hard in the starting phase and were in reverse from then on.
Marc Marquez survives Morbidelli collision: After that, it clicked
And yet there was a critical point to overcome. At the start of lap 22, there was contact with Franco Morbidelli. The Pramac rider had gone a little wide in turn 1, whereupon Marquez tried to cut through on the inside. When Morbidelli returned to the racing line, the two Ducatisti touched, and Marquez only stayed seated by luck and had to continue with a damaged windscreen. “Frankie had already gone a little wide two laps earlier, whereupon I stuck my front wheel in. Two laps later he went even further,” analyzed Marquez. “I wanted to stay on the inside of the white line and overtake him. I hadn’t expected the contact. Fortunately, we both stayed seated.”
The worst case scenario was avoided and from then on the attack mode was switched on. “I lost a bit of time due to the contact with Morbidelli, but then it clicked and I went all-in,” Marquez describes. “I have Enea [Bastianini, Anm.] quickly caught up and overtook aggressively, but that was the only way. When I caught up with my brother in the last laps, I had a lot of questions in my head. What can I do? How aggressively can I drive? After all, the podium would have been very nice for him too.”
In fact, a brotherly duel for the last podium place had been hinted at in the final laps, but then Jorge Martin crashed out, which suddenly turned into a duel for second place and, regardless of the result, neither Marquez had to miss out on a podium appearance. “It’s a shame for Martin, of course, but all the better for our team. That made the last few laps much easier,” said Marquez, who overtook his younger brother at turn 12 at the end of the penultimate lap. “I’m happy to share the podium with my brother, but overall it wasn’t a good weekend,” he concluded. “We had a lot of technical problems and then I made a big mistake in turn 11. That affected the whole weekend. But we will learn from it as a team. Now it’s time to recover.”