Marc Márquez is not having the weekend he had hoped for to end his remarkable drought of victories at his talisman circuit, Sachsenring. To break his bad streak, he warned in the preview, he needed to square all the sessions and come close to perfection like the two mainstays of the championship, Jorge Martín and Pecco Bagnaia. Indeed, the Madrid native from Pramac did everything right on a Saturday where he signed a new pole record and another victory sprintovertaking the satellite Aprilia of Miguel Oliveira and gaining ground on the defending champion, fourth on the grid and third at the finish line. The king of the German GP, on the other hand, had everything go wrong.
With 10 first places and 11 victories throughout his career on the Saxon track, Márquez had to settle for 13th on the grid and a comeback to sixth place in the short race after another day plagued by fatalities. “I already said it on Thursday, if I had a perfect weekend I could be with those in front, and it has been disastrous, the worst of the year. All the possible problems have arisen and we have had all the bad luck in the world,” lamented the rider from Cervera in Dazn.
As soon as he went out on track in the free practice session prior to qualifying, he had to return to the garage because the handlebars of his Ducati were not properly calibrated, probably a consequence of the crash he suffered on Friday that ended with the Catalan in the circuit’s medical centre. Although he insisted on using the same machine after the necessary repairs by the Gresini mechanics, during the first qualifying session he said enough and asked to change to the second bike when there were only a few minutes left to try the stopwatch. Márquez then played it with only one card and it backfired.
On the second corner of his fast lap, he found several slow riders and his former Honda teammate and test rider, Stefan Bradl, crossed his path, forcing him to abort his attempt to move into the fight for the lead. pole position. The 93 was very excited and asked for explanations from his uninvited guest, although he later admitted that the accident was a possibility on the twisty and short German track. “It’s a small circuit, these things happen,” he resigned himself before saving face during a sprint in which he displayed all his magic despite the pain in his ribcage and the fracture in the first phalanx of the index finger of his left hand.
The injuries he suffered on Friday did not seem to bother the eight-time world champion too much, although both the blow on the first day and bad luck in qualifying ended up sinking his plans to try to replicate the pace of the leaders of the competition. The comeback to sixth place, which he rounded off with an overtake in the last corner and beating Maverick Viñales by three thousandths of a second at the finish line, included one of his trademark saves in the first corner. When he was already on the ground, he stuck out his right knee and straightened the Ducati to avoid falling. His magic was still intact, although miracles are elusive in today’s MotoGP, and even more so in the current format. sprint on Saturdays.
This Sunday (2:00 p.m., Dazn), only a miracle will prevent Márquez’s unbeaten streak on Sundays at the Sachsenring from ending. If there is no victory, the Spaniard will go into the summer break knowing that his winning drought will exceed 1,000 days, even though he has plenty of reasons to be optimistic and believe that the title will come sooner or later in the future. Despite another dog day in what was his backyard during his golden years, he is taking it easy. “We are going to look for a good way out and move forward, but without going crazy. You get where you get to,” he said.
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