Vinales: Marquez, Honda remain favourites at Sachsenring

Maverick Vinales has dismissed Marc Marquez’s concerns he may struggle at the German MotoGP and placed the favourite tag firmly on the reigning world champion who has a perfect record in the premier class to defend at Sachsenring.

With Marquez claiming nine consecutive pole positions and race wins across all classes at Sachsenring, and is duly hunting down a perfect 10 this weekend, Vinales anticipates the Repsol Honda rider to remain the one to beat despite Marquez’s assertion that he might not be so dominant this year.

Buoyed by confidence from victory at Assen last weekend, Vinales’s and Yamaha’s first win since last year’s Australian round, the Spanish rider is eager to maintain his momentum and feels he has “nothing to lose” having already ruled himself out of the title race last month.

“I think Honda and Marc are the favourites here and they are the ones to beat,” Vinales said. “We are going to try to follow their speed.

“It will be very difficult but we are going to try to work on the same mentality as from Montmelo and Assen, trying to be strong in every session, then we will see.

“In the race you never know so I am going to try to prepare for the race the best we can and then we will see. The motivation is there, and I feel really good. We have nothing to lose so I will push at my maximum.”

Vinales has also pinpointed Sachsenring’s slower corners where his Monster Yamaha team will focus its efforts to improve his YZR-M1 package along with tyre life management which has proven vital in tightly-fought races this season.

“It will be very difficult, I think for us it is very important to improve the slow corners,” he said. “I think sector one is the most important sector for us all of the weekend to focus on and to try to improve.

“I think we manage the tyres quite well and it will be very important over the first laps. I think it is important to work on the start and the first laps too.”

Since joining Yamaha, Vinales has been a consistent performer in Germany with fourth place in 2017 followed up by a podium in third place last year.

Yamaha has not tasted victory at Sachsenring since 2009 with Valentino Rossi, which was the last non-Honda winner in the premier class in a decade of dominance.