Marc Marquez admits he was “not 100% happy” with dominant Germany MotoGP win

A 10th MotoGP win at the Sachsenring was record-equalling for Marc Marquez, but the fortunes of Alex Marquez took a small amount of the shine off the weekend for the reigning champion.

Giacomo Agostini’s 10 premier class wins at Imatra is a record that stood since 1975, meaning it took 51 years to be broken. 

Marc Marquez might’ve achieved that sooner without the repeated injuries he suffered from 2020, but the Spaniard is rarely one to entertain ‘what ifs’. 

Over the years, 33-year-old Marquez has also become an expert on managing the mental toll of a grand prix season, especially a season in which anything less than a world title would be a disappointing result.

Part of that management is thinking only about the things you can control yourself: how you ride, how you work with the team, how you treat the tyres on lap three so that they’ll give you something back on lap 23.

But even Marquez could allow himself some irrationality after that 10th premier class Sachsenring win, saying afterwards that the crash of his brother, Alex Marquez, out of second place meant that he could not be “100 per cent happy” with the race, especially after the Gresini Racing rider’s recovery from the injuries he sustained in Catalunya two months before.

“10 victories in one circuit in the MotoGP class is something amazing,” said Marc Marquez, speaking on MotoGP.com’s After the Flag show after the German Grand Prix.

“Honestly speaking, not 100 per cent happy because I would like to see also Alex [Marquez] here, on the podium, because I saw the way he worked after the Montmelo race and it was amazing, I didn’t expect it from him. 

“I know that he’s a worker, but it was more than what I expected and he was riding in a very good way. 

“But okay, on our part of the garage we worked very good and we found the best way to take the maximum this weekend.”

Marquez added that his original plan, to push from the start, briefly put him into difficulty with the front tyre, but once he understood how it was behaving he was able to impose his pace once again.

“I pushed in the beginning, but then I saw that the front tyre was on the limit, it was a strange feeling, and then I didn’t understand if I was graining the front or what’s going on,” the Ducati Lenovo Team rider said.

“Then I slowed down a bit, it’s when the group caught me again, and then when I saw that ‘Okay, I understand the front’, I re-attacked. 

“Then, that second attack is when I opened the gap.

“Then I knew that here in this circuit, when you take one-and-a-half seconds, two, it’s super-difficult to catch again.”