Marquez backed off in MotoGP sprint as result was “not enough” for risk

The Honda rider endured a bruising Saturday at the Sachsenring having crashed three times in qualifying on his way to seventh on the grid.

Briefly running fifth in the sprint, Marquez faded to 11th at the chequered flag to end a MotoGP contest of any kind at the Sachsenring without a win for the first time ever.

Marquez says after qualifying that he saw “the balance was not enough” to justify the risks for poor results, and after several early moments in the sprint he elected to back off to just get to the finish.

Asked if the Germany sprint was just about seeing the chequered flag, Marquez said: “Yeah, basically yes. It’s true that today I got up and we are in Sachsenring, my energy is positive.

“On wet conditions, as normal we are fast and I was there. But as soon as we have a dry track we are struggling a lot.

“In that [mixed] situation in the qualifying practice, I was pushing and crashing and coming back into the box and pushing again.

“But then when I was sat in my office between the qualifying practice and the sprint race, the balance was not enough [to justify the risk].

“All that risk for a seventh position was not enough for me. I went into the race optimistic, on the first lap I attacked.

“But already on the first lap attacking [I had] one warning at Turn 11, one warning at Turn 1. And then in that case you close [the throttle] a bit and finish the race.”

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team crash

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Marquez’s crash tally for the weekend so far is four and brings his season total up to 11 having only contested four rounds so far.

He notes that to get anywhere near the leaders he has to “risk too much”, but Honda riders simply “can’t” push on the bike for any position.

“It’s too much, it’s a lot,” he said of his crashes in Germany. “But at least I’m there, I’m close to the top guys. But the way to be close to the top guys is the way of taking too much risk and the consequence is crashing too much.

“I analysed the situation and said ‘OK, here we can’t’. But it’s not a consequence of trying to be there.

“I remember sitting on my sofa watching Jerez, and [Joan] Mir crashed four times during all the weekend fighting for 15th.

“So, it’s not a matter of ‘I want to be there’. It’s a matter of trying to push but we can’t. So, it’s important to see the real situation.”

The eight-time world champion added that his bike “was a disaster everywhere” in the sprint as Honda took a set-up “risk” to improve rear grip, which only made the problem worse.

“This race I cannot evaluate well, especially because we did a change for the race, just taking a risk because yesterday I was struggling a lot for rear grip,” he explained.

“And doing that change we lost more rear grip and turning. So, the bike in the race was a disaster everywhere.

“Tomorrow will be better, we will go back to the bike I know and try to finish the best [we can].”