‘If I lose, it’s OK’ - Marc Marquez “not the fastest” in Germany MotoGP practice
Marc Marquez has warned that his race pace is not the best at the German Grand Prix
Marc Marquez admits he is “not the fastest out there on race pace” at the MotoGP German Grand Prix and that not winning “would be OK”.
The reigning world champion is a nine-time winner at the Sachsenring in the MotoGP class, and comes into the Germany weekend as the pre-race favourite.
He topped Friday’s practice outright by 0.166s on his factory Ducati, but his race pace was not among the strongest in the hour-long afternoon session.
For Marc Marquez, ‘losing’ at the Sachsenring would mean finishing second or third, which he considers to be a good result.
“We did our pace,” he said.
“We tried to ride in our way. The good thing is when I pushed, the lap time arrived.
“But still I need to improve a few things if I want to have a constant pace.”
He added: “Let’s see tomorrow where we are and where the opponents are, because the opponents, it’s easy to put the pressure on another one.
“Looks like in Sachsenring, if I win, it’s the normal thing.
“If I lose, which means second position or third, which for me would be OK, means that it’s news.
“So, let’s see. But at the moment I’m not the fastest out there on race pace.
“On a single lap, yes. But on the race pace, I still need to improve a few things.”
Marquez explains FP1 crash
Marquez’s day didn’t get off to the best of starts when he crashed on just his third lap at Turn 3.
He was one of several riders in all classes to go down at the section, with Marquez explaining that there is a new bump on the apex.
Marquez noted that he is having to adjust his line through there, but took the blame for the crash because he “didn’t analyse well” similar incidents in the Moto2 session beforehand.
“Turn 3 is a new bump, and if it’s a new bump, the guy who finds a new bump is me,” he said.
“It was my mistake to don’t analyse well the Moto2 crash, because there Moto2 riders crashed two, three times, and just I said, ‘OK, they crashed there for some reason’.
“But it was a very big bump that even the asphalt was going out a bit, and you cannot use the correct line. You need to be a little bit more wide.”
