Marquez says current points gap to Rossi “not enough”

Marc Marquez says that his current 42-point advantage over Valentino Rossi in the MotoGP riders’ standings is “not enough” to dismiss the Italian’s title chances.

Podium: winner Jack Miller, Marc VDS Racing Honda, second place Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Second place Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Podium: second place Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Rossi’s hopes of capturing an eighth premier class crown took a knock in the previous race at Assen, where the Italian crashed out of the lead in wet conditions – recording his third DNF of the year.

Marquez, on the other hand, scored his third successive second place in a row, finishing only behind shock winner Jack Miller, to extend his advantage at the head of the standings to 24 points over Jorge Lorenzo.

And while Marquez says that Lorenzo’s position makes him the more dangerous rival as the season reaches the halfway stage at the Sachsenring this weekend, he says that Rossi can still be a factor in the title race.

“Of course, I couldn’t imagine this situation, because we struggled a lot in the pre-season,” said Marquez. “At the halfway point of the season leading by 24 points, I couldn’t imagine.

“But we’re getting better and better, and new items are arriving that we can test in the next races.

“We’ll see if we can do another step because at the moment Jorge is the strongest one, the closest one in the championship, he’ll be really strong like we saw last year in the second part of the season.

“So we need to take care about him, but don’t forget Valentino. He’s far [behind], but not far enough. In the last races he was very strong and it will be hard to manage the distance.

“[We must] keep same mentality until now – try to push if we can win, but in the end it’s difficult to manage the risk, to finish the races.”

Perfect record

Marquez has never been beaten at the Sachsenring in the premier class, but the Spaniard was cautious on his chances of getting a fourth successive MotoGP win at the German track.

“Here has been a good circuit for me in the past, but we will see this season because this weekend a big question mark is always the weather,” said Marquez.

“But it looks like the Honda works well here. We don’t have a lot of acceleration [zones], which helps us a bit, but we need to check how it is this year with the Michelin tyres and new electronics at this circuit."