Marc Marquez had a difficult Saturday at Sachsenring after crashing three times in qualifying and taking seventh place on the grid. After briefly finishing fifth in the Sprint, the Honda rider fell back to 11th at the checkered flag, finishing a MotoGP race at the Sachsenring for the first time in history without a win.
After qualifying, Marquez said he felt “the result wasn’t enough” to justify the risks involved in obtaining poor results, and in the Sprint he chose to settle for the finish line.
When asked if he had raced the Sprint in Germany just to see the checkered flag, Marquez replied: “Yes, basically yes. It’s true that I got up today and we are at the Sachsenring, so my energy is positive. On the wet, as usual, we’re fast and I was there. But as soon as the track dried, we struggled a lot.”
“With the mixed conditions, in qualifying, I was pushing, crashing, going back into the garage and pushing again. But then, when I sat in my office between qualifying and the Sprint, the result wasn’t enough to justify the risk” .
“All that risk for a seventh position wasn’t worth it for me. I entered the race optimistic and attacked. But already on the first lap, attacking, I had a warning at turn 11 and another at turn 1. In In these cases, the gas closes a bit and the race ends”.
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
Marquez’s tally for this weekend is four crashes and brings his season total to 11, having only contested four races so far.
To get close to the leaders he has to “risk too much”, but the Honda riders simply “can’t” push the bike to get a good position according to him.
“There are too many, there are many,” he said of his falls in Germany. “But at least I’m there, I’m close to the leaders. But the way to be close to the leaders is to risk too much, with the consequence of making too many crashes”.
“I analyzed the situation and said: ‘Ok, we can’t here’. But it’s not a consequence of trying to be there. I remember sitting on my sofa watching Jerez, and Mir crashed four times over the weekend, fighting for 15th place”.
“So, it’s not about wanting to be there. It’s about trying to push, but we can’t. So, it’s important to see the real situation.”
The eight-times world champion added that his bike “was a mess everywhere” in the Sprint, because Honda took a “risk” set-up to improve rear grip, which only made the problem worse.
“I can’t evaluate this race well, especially because we made a change for the race, taking a risk because yesterday I was struggling a lot with rear grip,” he explained.
“And by making that modification we lost more grip at the rear and in the corners. So, the bike in the race was a disaster everywhere. Tomorrow will be better, we’ll go back to the bike I know and try to finish as best we can.”
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
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