2023 Sachsenring MotoGP Report

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Jorge Martín managed tire wear brilliantly to come out on top at the Sachsenring. (MotoGP/)

Jorge Martín won the sprint and Grand Prix at the Sachsenring MotoGP, vacating his reputation for being fast only over shorter distances. Changing tactics to suit circumstance over the 30 laps, he held off an attack by series point leader and current champion Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati factory) to prevail by 0.064 second.

Martín’s race was 20.367 seconds faster than last year’s winning ride by Fabio Quartararo, who this year finished 13th, 25.117 seconds behind the leader.

Martín said, “Today was a tough race. Pecco improved a lot. He did an amazing step from yesterday to today—I saw it already in the warmup.

“But I was going too much into the rear tire so I said ‘It’s better that he catches me and let’s see what happens at the end.’”

Martín’s double victory at the Sachsenring leaves him just 16 points behind Francesco Bagnaia in the championship. (MotoGP/)

In other words, Martín knew that maintaining the present speed would soon exhaust his tires, Bagnaia would pass him, and Martín would have no reply. Better therefore to make a fresh gamble.

“When he overtook me (on lap 21 of 30) I changed the strategy a little, because I thought he was going to be with a little bit more tire. I wanted to fight back straight away. It wasn’t easy. He was pushing a lot.

“When I passed and at every lap [thereafter], knowing that he was chasing me, I read six-tenths [of a second] on my board. I tried to lengthen my pace to distance myself but it didn’t help. At that point, rather than wearing the tire I opted to go all out to close the trajectories. I was starting to have problems at the front and I thought, ‘If I have these problems, he’ll have them behind me too.’”

It was during the last part of the hectic duel that Bagnaia’s front tire touched Martín’s rear.

Bagnaia said, “I touched him and I lost a bit.”

Marc Márquez’s crash-filled weekend included a rather terrifying incident with Johann Zarco. (MotoGP/)

Martín’s “closing of his trajectories” was effective—all top riders know how to make themselves wider to prevent a capable pursuer from launching a successful pass. As we know, what distinguishes the top riders is their ability to manage more variables simultaneously. Racing is not a “constipation” to be relieved by emotional “grunting.” Emotions are released after the flag.

“It was so emotional today to win,” Martín said.

The method is to conceive a plan with a chance of success, and then skillfully carry it out, as Martín did.

Bagnaia continued, “In our case there was a difference in setting. Jorge and I rode different lines and I couldn’t get inside him. I tried at turns 5 and 6 but I couldn’t. On the descent (into the Wasserfall) you gain momentum and you can prepare an attack, but I didn’t do it because Jorge was good at covering. I couldn’t find a place to overtake him.”

Martín was first at the flag.

The 2023 MotoGP season in a picture: A pair of KTMs sandwiched by some incredibly quick Ducatis. (MotoGP/)

Just as at Mugello, the field expanded after the chaotic opening laps, so that at the end the gap was seven seconds back to Johann Zarco in third, 8.4 seconds to Marco Bezzecchi in fourth, and 11.7 to Luca Marini in fifth. The top five were all Ducatis and of the top nine, eight were Ducati. Straight-talking Jack Miller (KTM) was sixth and Miguel Oliveira (CryptoDATA RNF Aprilia) was 10th.

I attribute the larger gaps to the unlikelihood of all riders achieving an ideal setup in the reduced practice time and changed priorities of the new sprint formula.

The most dangerous thing a rider can do is try to make up for a bike’s shortcomings. This is because such pushing amplifies normally small mistakes until one of them diverges to bring down the rider. Marc Márquez made his usual admirable effort and his result was to crash five (!) times this weekend, withdrawing after the Sunday morning warmup, saying he’d return next weekend at Assen.

It is interesting in this context to consider something Quartararo said, comparing the two Japanese makes. Whereas the Honda was once supreme in braking but deficient in corner speed, and the Yamaha noted for high apex speed but deficient braking, now their former strengths have all but disappeared. These changes have been made for seemingly good reason: to make the bikes perform for riders other than the two who have in the recent past got the best from them.

Pramac Racing enjoyed another double podium at the Sachsenring. (MotoGP/)

Quartararo’s statement reveals that each maker has compromised its own strengths in the direction of the other’s, and in the process both have become mediocre. Maverick Viñales complained that he couldn’t brake on the Yamaha as he’d like, and that the bike ill-suited his “more aggressive” riding style. Before long, Valentino Rossi was noting that while Honda had gained something in corner apex speed, Yamaha had lost some of its previous advantage there. And now the top riders of the two makes, Yamaha and Honda, have said that they can no longer rely on their bikes to respond predictably. Without confidence in predictability, racing becomes blind guesswork.

Initially, the Yamaha closely suited corner-speed stylists Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, both of whom won championships on it. And while the Honda was built around Marc Márquez’s point-and-shoot style that consisted of hard braking and quick turn-in, followed by quick lift-and-go, he has been unable to add to his score of six MotoGP championships on the present, “more democratic” bike.

What’s lacking for Yamaha? “Grip, not only in acceleration but also in entering corners,” Quartararo said. “The bike goes sideways when entering and it had never happened with the Yamaha. We’re not able to bring speed in corners.”

Yamaha’s struggles continued in Germany as Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo could only manage 12th and 13th, respectively. (Yamaha Motor Racing Srl/)

As the original stylistic purity of each machine was compromised in hope of making it accessible to more riders’ styles, both combinations have been lost. Meanwhile, the Europeans have created powerful new strategies. First, to embrace aero downforce as a means of allowing bikes to accelerate harder off corners without being limited by wheelies. And second, Ducati’s ability to gather more data per unit of practice time than can teams with fewer bikes.

Test sequencing became important in 500 GP when Erv Kanemoto and his riders used if/then logic in the planning of testing. After working with Kanemoto, Jeremy Burgess brought those ideas with him to his riders at Honda. Ducati’s use of eight bikes in this connection means that, in theory at least, each rider can be assigned particular areas of setup concern, and as practice runs (what there is of it), the data can be assembled into a mature setup that benefits all.

I must emphasize that practice is not just riders “rolling around the circuit” (Mick Doohan’s words, describing aimless lapping). It is a tightly focused effort to identify particular problems holding bike and rider back, plus an opportunity to find and prove solutions within the time available. Achieving a winning setup is the task of practice.

The opening laps of the MotoGP races have been action-packed, but also lead to early race drama. (MotoGP/)

Ducati’s sporting director Paolo Ciabatti said, “Seeing five Ducatis up front on a track historically not favorable to our bikes confirms that the Ducati works well at the Sachsenring with all the riders and [their] different riding styles.”

Those who believe the old public relations fable that “Honda has a huge electronic brain that generates only right answers” have had since Márquez’s last championship (2019) to test their theory.

Paolo Scalera, renowned as one of motojournalism’s “bad boys” has quoted an unnamed “great technician of MotoGP” as having said, “Many engineers and most of the technical chiefs think the same way: Anyone who is behind stays behind, because there is barely time to get the bike set up. Those who have more bikes on the track benefit enormously from being able to have more data available.”

Can Honda and Yamaha, under the above limitations, return to competitive status? Or must their managers consider withdrawing from the series until the next change of formula, when they will have an equal chance of achieving parity?

A frustrated Marc Márquez bowed out of Sunday’s race following a crash in warmup—his fifth of the weekend. (MotoGP/)

Crash injuries have reduced Honda to one rider—Takaaki Nakagami (14th in Sachsenring on the LCR Idemitsu Honda). Márquez has a broken finger plus the thumping of his many recent crashes, Joan Mir an injured hand, and Álex Rins a badly broken leg. Some crashing does arise from weather and track geometry. Marco Bezzecchi (fourth on Mooney VR46 Ducati) said, “It’s cold and there are only three right-hand corners and all the others on the left. The first one…is full fifth gear and you must always be careful.” Top speed in fifth on Sachsenring gearing is 170 mph.

Here is Bagnaia’s view on crashing in 2023: “We are all closer and we all brake to the limit. Even when you start from the back and you know you don’t have the pace to stay in front, you try to gain as many positions as possible at the start to make the most of the new tires. That’s why there are so many crashes in the first part of the race.”

Surely those directing the series are extrapolating the trends we are now seeing. What conclusions are they drawing?

We’ll know more beginning this Friday as MotoGP action resumes at Assen.

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