This victory will help me continue: Marc Marquez

Yamaha MotoGP's Fabio Quartararo leads the world rider standings with 131 points

Honda Racing’s Marc Marquez announced his return to form with an impressive win in the German MotoGP at the Sachsenring on Sunday.

After crashing in the season-opener in Spain last year, he had to sit out the 2020 season and his bad run continued this year. But he came back in style with a win in Germany.

"I still don’t realise what is going on but it was a hard time. This victory will help me a lot to continue. When you are in a hard situation and with three crashes in a row, the mental side was not easy and of course on the physical side too. But when I crossed the finish line, it helps me to be here. The people in the team, family and friends were all helping me a lot to come back. It is the time to say thank you to all of them. This is an important victory for me and also for the Honda Racing family,” Marquez said.

“I said today is the day I will ride with less physical limitation. Because there are less right corners. I got the perfect start. When I saw some drops of rain, I said, ‘today is my day’. Then I pushed and was riding like before. When I saw that Miguel (Oliveira) was catching me, I said maybe it will be difficult. It was hard to push. I was thinking more about the three crashes in a row. It was important to finish the race and we did it in a very good way,” he added.

KTM Racing’s Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira finished second, while Yamaha MotoGP’s French rider and world championship leader Fabio Quartararo came in third.

Quartararo has 131 points, while Pramac Racing Ducati’s Johann Zarco is second in the championship with 109 points. Ducati’s Jack Miller has 100, while Francesco Bagnaia has 99. Ecstar Suzuki’s reigning world champion Joan Mir has 85 points.

Oliveira said: “I am very happy with this performance and the key moment was when the rain came. I was not in the ideal situation because I was not right behind him at that moment. I got stuck in this group when he got a gap. When I got to the second place, I put the pressure on him and did the best I could. I felt like he was in control of the whole race. Three laps to the end, he pushed a little bit more when I was completely empty and he pulled a gap. From then, I decided to bring the bike back to the garage," he said.

Quartararo explained his race by saying: “It was a good day and we saw one or two points on sector two that we were going to struggle. At turns six and seven, we were slow. All the other parts of the circuit were okay. But at these parts of the circuit, we struggled a lot. I did my best. With the team I said, we have good pace but to fight for victory is difficult. The goal was to try and finish in front of the Ducatis and finish on the podium. We were struggling, not a lot, but were not like in the previous races."