Marco Bezzecchi
Marc Marquez won his 10th Sprint Race of the 2025 MotoGP season at the German Grand Prix, with Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Quartararo joining him on the podium.
The 32-year-old has won 91% of the Sprint Races so far this term, with Marquez only unable to succeed on a Saturday at Silverstone when he finished second to Alex Marquez. But while he was once again the King of the Sachsenring, the Ducati star made things hard for himself.
Marquez scored his seventh pole of 2025 at the German GP on Saturday morning, yet he fell to fifth place after the first bend. The Spaniard struggled to slow his Ducati GP25 into Turn 1, which forced Marquez to run wide and nearly into the gravel as Bezzecchi snatched the lead.
Early fights with VR46 rider Fabio Di Giannantonio and KTM rival Pedro Acosta delayed what progress Marquez could make over the opening laps. However, their presences only held up his rise, with the six-time champion leaving them in his spray once he settled into the Sprint.
Neil Hodgson hails Fabio Quartararo’s ‘rare’ strong start for P3 in the German GP Sprint
Marquez made light work of overturning a 1.890-second deficit to Yamaha ace Quartararo in second place after passing Di Giannantonio at the end of Lap 4/15. He passed the 26-year-old into T1 on L9, and set about toppling a 1.696s deficit to Aprilia star Bezzecchi in the lead.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Fabio Quartararo from net worth to career stats
Bezzecchi tried everything he could, but Marquez winning the Sprint Race at the German GP was inevitable and he regained the lead on the last lap to win. All the while, Quartararo rode a lonely race for the Frenchman’s first Sprint podium for 43 rounds since the 2023 Dutch GP.
It was also only Quartararo’s second podium of the 2025 MotoGP season after sealing P2 in the Spanish Grand Prix in April. And the Nice native was quick to tell his mechanics ‘What a start’ upon arriving in the Sprint podium area at the Sachsenring, and Neil Hodgson agreed.
Hodgson said on TNT Sports 2 (12/07, 14:38): “Which is quite rare, isn’t it? The Yamaha is not really known for that. He’s on the podium today just because of that start.”
Fabio Quartararo starting a Sprint in 2025 strongly is not a surprise
Quartararo had only qualified in P7 for the German GP in Saturday morning’s wet Q2 session at the Sachsenring. Yet the strong start he and Hodgson hailed in the Sprint slotted the 2021 MotoGP champion into P3, which quickly became P2 when Franco Morbidelli crashed on L3.
With Marquez straight ahead of him on the grid, Quartararo fired off the line to benefit from the poor start that Acosta endured from P5. Alex Marquez from P6 on the grid then taking a more measured approach into T1 would also offer Quartararo another position at the start.
READ MORE: Everything to know about Yamaha from the MotoGP team’s riders to hierarchy
The real magic of Quartararo’s start then came as the field bunched up on the inside leaving Turn 1, as Marquez also tried to recover from his mistake, which promoted the Yamaha rider further up the order. An aggressive line meant he took the inside line for T3 off Johan Zarco.
From there, the Sprint at the German GP was a lonely event for Quartararo, except for when Marquez re-passed him for second place. But it was not the first time this term that his start made a Sprint for Quartararo, who also started strongly at Jerez but failed to capitalise on it.
Like Hodgson has done at the German GP, Sylvain Guintoli praised Quartararo’s ‘unreal’ start to the Jerez Sprint in April. When it appeared likely that the Yamaha star would lose the lead after starting from pole position, Quartararo did not give Marquez an inch to lead out of T1.
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