Marc Márquez has an impressive record at the German GP, not losing at Sachsenring since 2011, although he missed the 2022 and 2023 races due to injury. Now, for the first time, he faces the circuit on a Ducati, seeking his first victory with his current bike.
In a press conference, the Gresini rider admitted that he has better prospects than he did before the Dutch GP: ‘We will see. Of course predicitions are better than last Thursday in Assen for example. But anyway what I predict is that if I can have a perfect weekend, with the correct steps and all these things, then maybe I will have the chance to fight with these two guys that in the last races they were a step in front – Pecco even two steps in front – of the others. So we will try to do our 100% and let’s see if the fact of being in Sachsenring can help me a little bit to have at least the chance do fight with these two riders’.
Asked whether he would need his best performance ever at Sachsenring to have a chance of beating Bagnaia and Martín, Márquez replied:
– Yes, of course. If I want to have the chance, I need to ride in a perfect way in Sachsenring as I did in the past. But when we arrived here in the past I was competitive in all the race tracks and here I made the difference. Now they are faster in the other race tracks, so here let’s see if I have the chance or enough level, enough speed to fight with them. But it will not be an easy weekend as the people say. It’s not like this.
Sachsenring is a special circuit for the #93 considering his many successes there. When asked if he feels anything different before this round, Márquez commented: ‘Not really. If I need to say something, I feel worst because it’s colder and we are not used; now in Spain is super hot [laughts]. But it’s true that when you arrive in a circuit that you like, then everything looks happier and nicer. But it’s true that last year for example I learned many things during that weekend and one of those things was that you need to have real expectations. And real expectations are what I’ve said before. Unreal expectations? It’s be here and be first in every practice – these are unreal expectations because of course we arrive in a circuit where I won a lot in the past, but now it’s the present, and in the present there are two riders who, especially in the last races from Montmeló, they’ve increased the speed and I was not able to follow them. So, yeah, I go on that second step because they were just faster and faster’.