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Folger "really thought" he could beat Marquez
Tech 3 Yamaha rider Jonas Folger believes he had the pace to deny Honda's Marc Marquez in the German Grand Prix despite having to settle for second on home turf.
Valentin Khorounzhiy
Edited: Jul 2, 2017, 4:50 PM
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Sachsenring specialist Marquez briefly slipped behind Folger early on in the race, but soon re-passed him and went on to win by 3.3 seconds – claiming his eighth successive win from pole at the venue.
Folger, however, shadowed Marquez for almost the whole race after losing the lead, running within half a second of the reigning MotoGP champion until a mistake with three laps to go forced him to settle for runner-up.
“I don't know what to say, really. I never expected this today,” said Folger after securing his maiden podium finish in only his ninth MotoGP race.
“I was really strong and I could follow Marc quite good. Really, I couldn't believe that we made a gap to the rest, I thought Dani [Pedrosa] was going to stay [close].
“I was behind [Marquez] trying to save tyres, suddenly I made one big mistake in Turn 1, I lost a little bit to Marc, I tried to recover and, yeah, I burned the tyre.
“I didn't have the laptime that he made in the last two laps but, really, I thought I can beat him today. I had a good rhythm but the tyre, just two laps before, the tyre gave up.”
For his part, Marquez – who now leads the championship – admitted he was wary of the threat from Folger late in the race, after initial attempts to shake off the German proved unsuccessful.
He recalled: “[It] was a really, really fast race, the rhythm was incredible. I was riding really good even on the beginning but then suddenly I saw that Jonas overtook me.
“I say 'okay maybe with the new tyre he's strong but maybe he'll drop the pace', but was not like this.
“I was pushing, pushing, pushing on [1m]21[s] all the race, but he was just following me – I say 'okay he will try sure on the last laps'.
“But then last five laps I try to increase a bit the rhythm, I improve my laptime two tenths, was enough to open a small gap.”
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