Marc Marquez dominates for victory in crash-strewn race

Marc Marquez took his fourth consecutive grand prix win and his ninth MotoGP victory at the Sachsenring as he dominated the German Grand Prix.

The factory Ducati rider was unchallenged as he led the full distance from pole position.

His brother Alex Marquez returned to familiar territory by finishing second for Gresini Ducati, while his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia came home third in a dry but attritional race which saw just 10 finishers.

Shortly before proceedings got underway on a hitherto cloudy day, the sun came out. This reduced the likelihood of any weather-related guesswork standing in Marc Marquez’s way.

Nor was there any repeat of Marc’s mistake at Turn 1 at the sprint race. This time he converted a good start into a first-corner lead and from there he simply pulled away to win by over six seconds.

The dry weather was good news for Fabio Di Giannantonio, who had shown good pace in such conditions on Friday before a tougher qualifying in the wet.

He did the first part of his job with a good start, claiming an early third place behind Marc and Marco Bezzecchi’s Aprilia. Indeed, Di Giannantonio immediately looked faster than Bezzecchi. It took two attempts, but by the end of lap three, Di Giannantonio was up into second place ahead of Bezzecchi, Alex Marquez and KTM’s Pedro Acosta.

Acosta then lost the front end at Turn 2 on lap four, following which the race settled into a pattern for an extended period. Marc was pulling away at the front, Di Giannantonio had no answer but had Bezzecchi covered, with Alex Marquez, Bagnaia and Johann Zarco next up. The chances of a move among the top several riders around the tight Sachsenring circuit looked slim once the early jockeying was done.

Indeed, whil overtaking at the sharper end of the field was just about done for the day, the race nonetheless exploded into action with a series of accidents around two-thirds distance.

On lap 18 – and out of nowhere, it seemed – Di Giannantonio lost it under braking for Turn 1, the corner that has claimed so many of MotoGP’s top names over the years.

Zarco, who had immediately gone backwards from the front row on the lone LCR Honda, joined him in the same trap just seconds later.

Bezzecchi thus inherited second place from his former VR46 team-mate, but it wasn’t to last long. On lap 21, he too was caught out by Turn 1 and his fine run of results came to an end.

Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

All of this promoted Alex Marquez and Bagnaia into their final positions on the podium.

Fabio Quartararo rode steadily to take fourth place on the factory Yamaha, fighting off a late charge from Gresini’s Fermin Aldeguer.

With midfielders Ai Ogura and Joan Mir also landing in the Turn 1 gravel trap during the flurry of accidents there, and Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori ending his race at the downhill right-hander too, only 10 riders finished the German GP.

Those who stayed on board thus scored good points, with Luca Marini sixth for Honda, Brad Binder seventh for KTM, Jack Miller eighth for Pramac Yamaha and Raul Fernandez ninth on the Trackhouse Aprilia.

Factory Yamaha rider Alex Rins finished 10th, with five points-paying positions unclaimed. A total of eight retirements was made to look worse by the fact that only 18 riders had started the race, following two pre-weekend withdrawals and crashes for Maverick Vinales and Franco Morbidelli on Saturday.

MotoGP German GP – results