How Marquez beat his Honda in his heroic MotoGP comeback win

Marc Marquez's vibrant victory in the German Grand Prix is the best fuel for Honda to persist in its quest to find a solution to its 2021 bike's problems. A series of factors allowed the Spaniard to minimise those shortcomings, despite not being fully recovered from the right-arm injury that has so disrupted his past year.

A total of 581 days had to pass before the six-time MotoGP world champion could celebrate victory again, having last stood on top of the podium at Valencia in 2019. What followed was a year and seven months in which he went through the darkest period of his life following his crash at the 2020 Spanish GP – needing three operations that kept him out of action for the entirety of 2020 and threatened his career.

There were many things that, during the last laps at the Sachsenring, he mentally reviewed before crossing the finish line and bursting into tears without consolation.

“Only he knows what he has suffered, so he deserves this more than anyone else,” Marquez’s crew chief Santi Hernandez told Autosport. “In all this time we have seen a different Marc, more emotional, and that is a reflection of the road he has travelled.

“He is not fully recovered and the bike is not at its best level, but here he has made something possible that was very difficult. My head told me it was almost impossible to win, but my heart asked me to believe in it. The most important thing is that he's convinced himself that he's fully capable of doing it again.”

Throughout his career in the world championship, there are countless times in which Marquez has been able to make up for the deficiencies of his bikes. The German Grand Prix will be at the top of the list, and not only because of the lack of traction of the 2021 Honda, but also because of the physical limitation in his right shoulder which is stopping him from riding the bike in his usual style.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

On Sunday it was clear why Marquez is known in Germany as the 'King of the Ring' - he now has 11 consecutive wins from his last 11 visits to the Sachsenring, and ten pole positions across all classes. The fact that it is a circuit with the most left-hand turns (10 out of 13) was doubly important this time - not only because his flat track background suits this type of track much better than those consisting of predominantly right-hand turns, but also because his right shoulder is not as exposed as on other tracks.

Although the doctors who performed the last surgery on him in December 2020 are satisfied with the healing of the fracture in the humerus, the discomfort is now focused on the back of the shoulder. This is an area of the rider's body that has accumulated a lot of wear and tear, following the surgery he underwent in November 2019 to prevent the dislocations he suffered every now and then. And in the winter of 2018 he underwent surgery on his left shoulder for a recurring dislocation problem which dogged him that season.

"A lot of people don't know that Marc hasn't had a break for a long time,” Hernandez adds. “He hasn't had a minimally normal holiday since I can't even remember. He's gone from recovery to recovery, with barely two days off.”

"He is not fully recovered and the bike is not at its best level, but here he has made something possible that was very difficult. My head told me it was almost impossible to win, but my heart asked me to believe in it" Santi Hernandez, Marquez's crew chief

Speaking to Autosport, HRC team boss Alberto Puig added: “If [a win] had to happen, it had to be here, because this is a very favourable circuit for Marc. But this doesn't mean that we have solved everything. We have a problem with the bike that needs to be solved, and he is still not 100%. This moment gives us great joy, but he has to continue with his recovery, and we, as a brand, have to evolve the bike.”

Those “problems” to which the former grand prix rider refers are reflected in the race data. On lap nine of 30, with the rain flags being displayed as spots of water started drop on the Sachsenring, Marquez was the only rider in the race who did not slow down by a tenth of a second.

Both Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaro and Ducati’s Jack Miller, who at that moment were chasing the Honda rider, were a second slower than on their previous lap - a circumstance that allowed Marquez to gain a one second margin which he managed to the finish, even when KTM's Miguel Oliveira put his endurance to the test towards the end.

“Marc made the difference, especially when those four drops of rain started to fall,” agrees Hernandez. The only other point so far this season where Marquez looked like his old competitive self was in the flag-to-flag French GP. Making the difference in the tricky conditions, he built up a commanding lead before ultimately crashing out.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Marquez’s overall race time on Sunday was one second quicker than his last Germany victory in 2019. That was despite a glaring loss of time in the third sector of the circuit, a two-tenths of a second per lap loss that exposed the RC213V's lack of traction.

According to team boss Puig, Honda has been working at full capacity for days now to try to turn around a very delicate situation.

“Honda is working flat out to solve the problems with the bike, but to say that we will solve them in two days would be a lie - we're not sleeping, we're looking for solutions,” says Puig, who obviously does not hide the value of the achievement in Germany for the impact it will have on the team.

“Starting with the rider, no one in this team ever loses motivation. This is our strength. We are talking about a team that is used to winning almost all the time, that is going through a very difficult time and that is surviving. This shows us that, if we keep insisting, we can get back to our goal: to win.”

Both Marquez and all the Honda team are convinced that the suffering is not over. “Assen will put us back in the right place for the way the bike is,” Marquez admitted. But the mere fact he has been able to win again in MotoGP, after everything he has been through, suggests it’s only a matter of time before both he and Honda are back to the strength which made them such a potent force in MotoGP before 2020.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images