Marc Márquez (P1) – “I was expecting the win, even though – like yesterday – I wasn’t the fastest rider on track. I managed the gap in the early stages, then controlled the race, and I’m very happy because we scored another 37 points. Obviously, I’m not fully satisfied, as my main rival – my brother – crashed and got injured. But that’s racing. I want to thank Ducati and the team, who worked until late on Friday after I destroyed the bike twice.”
Marco Bezzecchi (P2) – “It was a fantastic race. In spite of a less than perfect start, I managed to stay in the group of fastest riders straight away and make up a few positions rapidly, moving into second place. At the beginning of the race, I was trying to manage the situation and stay behind the leader because I wanted to be sure that the tyre pressure was good, since I had never tried the hard tyre throughout the weekend, making it a complete unknown. From the midrace point, however, the leader changed the pace and I tried to stay as close as possible to keep the pressure on, but I never made a mistake. In the final laps I started to drop off a bit as I had truly arrived at the limit with the rear tyre. It was a brilliant weekend. I hadn’t been on the podium on both Saturday and Sunday for a long time, so I’m rather happy.”
Francesco Bagnaia (P3) – “Here, for the first time, I felt I had a real chance to fight for the win. Today, when I finally managed to get fully dialled in, it was already a bit too late. I was lapping really fast, but I can’t seem to get close enough to the rider ahead. When I try, I end up taking too many risks, which usually lead to me running wide. It’s a tricky situation that has been with us since the start of the season, and it seems hard to solve – but we must keep working and take a step forward.”
Maverick Viñales (P5) – “I’m quite happy. I still have a lot to learn from the bike. From lap 10 to 16-17 I had a good rhythm and could ride pretty fast and the guys in front were not getting away but then I had a massive drop on the rear and couldn’t push any more. I tried! But it was not possible. Today was one of those days where I had to accept the situation and just arrive home for the last five laps. We are positive and we know we have good potential. We just need to make life easier for ourselves and a better qualifying will help.”
Fabio Di Giannantonio (P6) – “The expectations were higher for today, we’ve been working very well with the team during all the weekend, and I was very fast on the pace. I expected I had more confidence to push, but the feeling with the rear was strange. The race was in defense, so the sixth place is good. In the second half, I lost time staying with Franco and Maverick, I think that I had more potential and, honestly, we could have achieved the fifth place. We just miss the lap in qualifying, because we are fast in every situation. Once we fix the time attack, we can fight for something huge.”
Franco Morbidelli (P7) – “At the end, the seventh place is a good result on my most difficult race of the year. Here I’ve always struggled here, and I knew it would happen this weekend too. But we struggled less than I thought, and this is positive. In the first half of the race, I was fighting for the top positions, then I started to struggle with the bike, and I had to slow down. I also had a Long Lap Penalty. Now we rest a little bit, and we prepare for Sachsenring, that’s a more suitable track for us.”
Enea Bastianini (P9) – “One of the better results but also for my feeling on the bike. I still have the same problem: when I am following and in the slipstream I can turn the bike and make the changes of direction necessary to have the same pace as the other KTMs, but when I am alone I cannot push in the same area. It’s like the bike is much heavier and that’s a problem at a track like this one. We need to understand this better.”
Fabio Quartararo (P10) – “My start was not so good, but not so bad either, it’s just that the others made a great start. The first laps were very difficult for us; we had zero grip. We were missing something. When Fermin crashed in front of me, I went into the grass and lost 8 or 9 seconds. It was a close one. You don’t know what to do in such a situation. You want to keep turning, but the bike and Fermin are coming towards you. I opened the throttle to go into the grass. And then, when I was behind other riders, it was tricky to overtake. I think today, especially in the second part of the race, I could have gone much, much faster had I not been behind rivals.”
Brad Binder (P11) – “I didn’t have much pace all weekend. I could do the same time every lap but it was too slow. I missed the speed here. It’s been tough and the only positive is that I finished both races…but that doesn’t mean much to me! We need to go home and analyze where I was losing the time. In general, it is nothing too serious we just need a bit more speed.”
Johann Zarc0 (P12) – “Despite a tough weekend, grabbing points feels rewarding. We wanted to improve, but we didn’t nail the job. We need to better understand the situation to turn things around. I was aiming for a top-10 finish, but it wasn’t easy. Of course, scoring points is important, especially after the recent results, but we need to get back to where we were a few weeks ago. We’ll try again at the Sachsenring.”
Alex Rins (P13) – “The race was tough, because we couldn’t do more. I had a big moment in corner 5 trying to avoid Oliveira who touched with another rider. From there, I tried to recover positions, tried to recover the gap, and I arrived in P14 or P15. I was fighting and doing some overtakes. But, even without this incident in the opening lap, the race would have been difficult. We know what is causing us problems, so we need to work on this. From our side, we give everything on track.”
Jack Miller (P14) – “It was pretty much a race stuck in the middle of the group, battling away. I was behind Enea for a long time and couldn‘t do much. Even when Fabio passed me, I was curious to see what he could do, as he seemed to be carrying a bit more speed, but he also got stuck there. With everyone running similar pace, you basically have to wait for someone to make a mistake to pass — otherwise, it’s really difficult; you‘re never truly in a position to do much. We struggled a bit with engine braking — I switched to Map 2 on lap 3, then to Map 3 on lap 10, and from that point, I was done — I couldn‘t go anywhere. We gathered some good information this weekend; there are positives on the bike and also areas where we clearly need to improve. Let‘s see what we can do in Germany.”
Somkiat Chantra (P15) – “Getting my first point in the MotoGP championship is very special. I’d like to thank Aleix Espargaró, riding behind him helped me understand many things, and I learned a lot. I pushed hard to score points, and we finally achieved it. Many thanks to the team and to Takaaki Nakagami for their work and support this weekend!”
Aleix Espargaro (P16) – “For me it was a much more complicated race than I thought it would be in all honesty. We had a lot of vibrations throughout the whole race, and I was running wide a lot, and I had to focus on finishing the race. I know that I can do more, you can see that Mir and Zarco are able to accomplish some good results. We need to work on improving this vibration so that the other riders can focus on going as fast as possible. It’s good to have this weekend under our belt, some good information to take back to my job as a tester.”
Joan Mir (DNF) – “First of all, I am happy that Fermin is okay because he took a big fall and when you fall like that in the track – it’s complicated. I was really happy with how my race had started, my lap times were close to the guys at the top and I was gaining on the groups in front. I couldn’t do anything to avoid the crash unfortunately. It was a big hit also for me, I’m in quite a lot of pain so I’ll return home and check my condition in a few days.”
Lorenzo Savadori (DNF) – “I’m disappointed about how my race went but extremely happy for Aprilia because we still had a great weekend and we brought some upgrades that worked well straight away. Marco managed to take a great podium finish in the sprint race and a fantastic podium in the long race as well. I started well and was in the top-ten group but unfortunately I crashed out. Understanding and analysing all of that will be important.”
Miguel Oliveira (DNF) – “Simple and frustrating, it was your typical traffic light incident. I had another good start, immediately gained three positions, and everything was going smoothly. But at Turn 5, Zarco dived inside, right behind two other riders, and Jack was behind them, braking at the exact moment I was opening the throttle. In that instant, I clipped his rear tire and was nearly thrown off the bike. Luckily, Ogura was there and basically held me upright. We both went off track, he crashed, I managed to rejoin the race, but my front fairing was broken, and the handlebar was bent. I still tried to carry on; I stopped to change the fairing and got back on track, hoping for a red flag, but after a few laps, I had to retire. It‘s a shame because I really believed today could‘ve been a strong race, possibly inside the top ten, but we‘ll never know. In the end, we leave the weekend with no points, and that‘s the reality.”
