Marc Marquez "held back", "we never really saw" full capability at German MotoGP

Marc Marquez has taken a massive lead of 83 points in the 2025 MotoGP standings after a dominant victory last weekend at the German Grand Prix.

Despite changeable conditions across the weekend, the factory Ducati rider came away with his fourth sprint/grand prix double in succession and his seventh in total.

Marc Marquez was over six seconds clear of his rivals at the chequered flag in the grand prix, having the day before admitted he pushed “too much” in his pursuit of a sprint win in the wet.

“He’s got this sort of one Marquez sat on one shoulder and another sat on the other and whispers in his ear saying ‘go on, you can do this’ and the other saying ‘no, Marc, don’t listen to him’,” Crash MotoGP Podcast host Jordan Moreland said.

“And I think this weekend was a perfect example of that. On Friday in practice he didn’t even put new tyres in at the end to do a time attack and his best lap time on used tyres was good enough for third place.

“And it just said that ‘I’m preparing for the dry on Sunday’, he was thinking ahead because he knew Saturday was going to be wet.

“And then it comes to the Saturday and he doesn’t need to win the sprint and then he has that whisper in his ear of ‘go on, do it’.

“And he tells himself off after. But how can you control yourself when you know you have so much in hand around this circuit?”

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Marquez was not tested at any point during the 30-lap grand prix, and Crash MotoGP Editor Peter McLaren doesn’t believe we truly saw what the eight-time world champion is capable of.

“He justified it by saying that he felt so good on the bike,” McLaren said of Marquez’s sprint win.

“So he didn’t feel, even though he was obviously pushing and went for the win, like he was taking that big a risk.

“Come Sunday, as soon as the clouds cleared and he took the holeshot into Turn 1 that was it - race over.

“He was always in control. Marc’s just looking in unstoppable form at the moment. We go to Brno now, a track nobody’s been to for a few years.

“But the events before this weekend were on tracks that weren’t so suited to Marc.

“We came to the Sachsenring… I was going to say he showed us what he could do, but I don’t think he did.

“I think he held back by such an amount that we never really saw what Marc was capable of on a dry track.

“He said in the press conference that he respects his rivals, it’s hard to win in this sport. But it was just the dream combination of rider, bike, track.”

Crash Senior Journalist Lewis Duncan adds that Marquez’s recent run shows he’s ironed out those early season mistakes that lost him big points in the opening grands prix.

“We saw those early season mistakes and he spoke about that being his weak point,” Duncan said.

“And since then, since Aragon it’s all really been ironed out. He’s been in a lot of different conditions to test that. At Aragon he was in quite dominant form and he didn’t make a mistake.

“At Mugello and Assen especially he was pushed really, really hard from behind and he didn’t crack. He’s fully learned from all these things and four consecutive doubles is unprecedented in this era.

“Think back to last year at the same point and Jorge Martin had won twice.”