‘It’s a nightmare’ - Why overtaking was so difficult in the Germany MotoGP sprint

VR46 Ducati MotoGP rider Fabio Di Giannantonio says following riders at the Sachsenring is “a nightmare” and attempting overtakes is “pretty risky”.

Marc Marquez led Saturday’s sprint at the Sachsenring from start to finish from pole, leading home fellow front-row starters Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio in grid order.

Di Giannantonio was jumped by Ai Ogura on the opening lap, but overtook the Trackhouse Aprilia rider at the end of the first tour to get back into third.

Despite having enough pace to beat Alex Marquez and challenge Marc Marquez for the win, the VR46 rider says there was nothing he could do to make a difference.

Di Giannantonio complained that front tyre temperatures rocket while following other riders, with the layout of the circuit adding to this problem.

“This track is really, really difficult to overtake [on],” he began.

“Once you go behind a rider, just the front tyre gets hot, and with all the corners and the angle, it’s really difficult to keep the pace and then try to overtake.

“You can do it, but it’s pretty risky.

“So, I had to do the move on Ogura in the beginning to try to be there.

“But I tried to have a little space in the middle of the race [to cool] the front tyre. But it was not enough in the end; it was just too risky to overtake Alex.”

On trying to cool his front tyre, he added: “You do it to keep the pace in a safer way.

“I think that I had better speed to go faster. It’s 100% true that also Marc was not pushing at 100%.

“I think Marc had something more, but he was controlling it, but that is normal.

“And for us, I was there trying to be with them. But when you are behind, it gets really a nightmare to just keep the pace.

“Even if you are faster, you cannot really keep the pace. So, you need some room.”

Di Giannantonio also noted that anything you do to try to save the rear tyre to potentially give you an advantage is offset by the damage that does to the front.

“You can do different lines to try to save the rear tyre,” he explained.

“But whatever you do to save the rear tyre, it destroys the front tyre a little.

“And when you are behind a rider who will do almost most of the lap on the edge [of the tyre], it’s really difficult then to save it.

“So, once you arrive pretty close, you just have the front moving all of the time.

“So, it was a bit strange to race like this. But it’s like this and we need to adapt and do something better for tomorrow to try to attack.”

Third place in the Sachsenring sprint has moved Di Giannantonio to 13 points adrift ofthe championship lead.