Alex Marquez: Injury “not an excuse” as MotoGP sprint podium run comes to an end

Alex Marquez says injury was “not an excuse” for his MotoGP sprint podium run coming to an end at the German Grand Prix.

The Gresini Ducati rider had been on the podium in every Saturday race this season prior to the German Grand Prix, with Alex Marquez sharing the top two places with his elder brother Marc Marquez.

But that run was ended on Saturday in the rain-hit 15-lap sprint at the Sachsenring, with Alex Marquez dropping from sixth on the grid to a distant eighth.

Carrying a fracture in his left hand from a crash at the Dutch Grand Prix, this weekend was expected to be a struggle for Alex Marquez on the anticlockwise Sachsenring circuit.

But he insists this was not the reason for his slump to eighth, with the Spaniard admitting he didn’t feel confident enough to push on his GP24.

“The doctor repeated to me many, many times ‘don’t crash, please, don’t crash’,” he said.

“And he said to me one time ‘wet can be better’, but I said ‘yeah, but the percentage of crashing there is higher’.

“No excuse. The finger was not a problem today, more the feeling was not there.

“I decided to finish the sprint race. Tomorrow we have a second row, sixth place, so it’s not bad.

“But it would be an excuse if I said it was the finger. No, it was the feeling I had on the bike, it was not the best one.

“On wet, it’s always a lottery and I didn’t feel [confident enough] to push.

“So, just we saved two points - better than nothing.

“We lost 10 compared to Marc, but we achieved two more than Pecco [Bagnaia].

“So, not everything is negative. Already to be here for me is a victory, so to have two points more in the championship is a really good thing.”

Alex Marquez is now 78 points off the championship lead, after Marc Marquez guided his factory team Ducati to his 10th sprint win of the year.

A difficult race for Pecco Bagnaia saw the third-placed rider in the standings finish out of the points in 12th.