Marc Marquez admits maintaining his German Grand Prix victory streak “every year is more and more difficult”despite easing to his ninth-successive Sachsenring win last Sunday.
The Honda rider has secure pole and won every race at the Sachsenring since the 2010 125cc event, and maintained that record this year with his sixth-straight premier class German Saturday and Sunday successes.
Despite taking victory by just over two seconds, the Spaniard admits it is getting more “difficult” each year to keep his Sachsenring run intact.
“Another victory here in Sachsenring, but looks like every year is more and more difficult – and especially this year was very difficult, because we have during all weekend good conditions, so everybody can set up the bike, the riding style in a correct way,” Marquez, who now leads the standings by 46 points, said.
“During the race – already in the warm-up I practice and I try to find the feeling, for try to save the tyres, to see how was the laptime, and when I was pushing, to see which laptime I was able to do.
“Was like this, I was just trying to save the rear tyre in the beginning of the race and then just try to keep this 1:21s high, 1:22s low, but then I see that Valentino [Rossi] was coming quite fast, I say 'okay, now is time to use all the potential of the tyre and then we'll see in the end of the race'.
“I did the fastest lap in lap 22, that is amazing because the tyre normally drop quite a lot.
“But apart from that, when I open two seconds, I try to manage but then I see that he dropped quite a lot the pace. Happy to take 25 points and to go on the summer break with a good victory.”
Marquez opted to run the soft rear tyre despite the near-50 degree track temperatures, and says he was forced into this as the harder options were too soft “in some areas”.
“So, yeah, I choose the softer rear option because during all weekend was working a lot for the race distance,” he said.
“For some reason I feel 'softer' [with] the medium tyre than the soft.
“It's strange to say, but in some areas that hard tyre was softer, I mean, my feeling on the bike, was softer than the soft tyre.
“For that reason I choose that tyre because just I was careful on the right side, but on the left side was much better.”
