Bike issue stopped Pedrosa from following Marquez's strategy

Pedrosa was running well ahead of his championship-leading teammate after Marquez's trip through the gravel on lap 11, but only changed to his second bike four laps after Marquez had already done so.

In the end, Marquez's strategy helped him to a fourth consecutive Sachsenring win, while Pedrosa went on to finish sixth.

After the race, Pedrosa said: "I wanted to stop before, but they had a problem in the box.

"For some reason, they couldn’t make the bike start, the slick bike did not have the engine running, so I stayed out longer.

"When Marquez stopped, I saw it on the screen when I was running and I wanted to come in. But I didn’t have the OK to come in from the pit board."

Lack of pace on the second bike

Having been 16 seconds off Marquez after his first outlap, Pedrosa ended up taking the chequered flag 26 seconds behind his teammate - and admitted post-race to struggling in his second stint.

He said: "I was not very fast the first three or four laps [after stopping]. The tyres felt very strange and I could not push as I wanted, the [tyre] warm-up was too slow.

"I lost the pace when I took the slicks. I think the track was ok to use the intermediate, but I never tried it before, so we decided to go on slicks."

Additional reporting by Oriol Puigdemont