Analysis: How Marquez outplanned his rivals to salvage Germany win
Marc Marquez's against-odds Germany win was made possible by him getting pre-race preparations right when his rivals did not.
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The tale of how Marquez took victory in Germany is a choir exercise, in which the biggest part of the merit belongs to the rider.
But at the same time, the nature of the triumph is the reflection of both the atmosphere within the team and of how it contrasts with that of other teams.
Marquez and Santi Hernandez, his chief mechanic, like to prepare for all the possible scenarios that can arise in a race affected by the weather, like on Sunday.
Amid other parameters, they had made calculations about the time they would lose with the bike swap, which they estimated would be around 45 seconds.
The roadmap was established in the meeting prior to the race and everything worked out perfectly, even if luck the #93 bike's side.
To make it all work, Marquez asked Roger Van De Borght, HRC's long-time coordinator, if he could go to one of the final corners of the circuit to give a signal for when Marquez was to pit, without the Spaniard having to cross the finish line.
The Belgian accepted the task with a lot of enthusiasm for being part of a strategy that ended up working flawlessly.
After stepping down from the podium, Marquez was full of praise towards all the members of his team, something he has done more than once. Even on worse days, the Spanish rider is not known for having ever criticised his crew, like some of his rivals did in Germany.
The harshest critic was Pedrosa, his teammate, who left his team holding the baby for having taken three laps to get his second bike started - something that is denied by the team.
It is obvious that the atmosphere on that side of the garage has nothing to do with the one on the other side, but even HRC considers the criticism unfair.
Lorenzo's case was not the same, but it was close. The Yamaha rider will leave to go to Ducati next year, and only Juan Llansa, his trusted mechanic, will go with him.
After finishing 15th, more than a minute behind the winner, Lorenzo sent a clear message.
"Today I learned that we probably didn't prepare the race well in terms of strategy. We didn't have the pre-race meeting we should have had, and when I went back out with the second bike, it was fitted with intermediate tyres," said the reigning world champion.
Then there's Rossi, who ignored the instructions from the wall to pit to switch bikes, much to his engineers' despair, as they saw the Italian lose all chances of a podium finish as a result.
In contrast to the previous cases, Il Dottore downplayed the influence from his team in the final result (he finished eighth), and just pointed out the lack of competitiveness from the Yamaha on a wet track.
"Pitting two or three laps earlier would not have changed much," said the Italian.
It is obvious that the planning and the cohesion present in Marquez's garage played in his favour this time.
At the same time, the lack of understanding and the conflicts his rivals suffered from sealed their own destinies at the Sachsenring.
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