Marquez has been unbeaten at the Sachsenring since 2010, but admitted on Saturday that he couldn’t think of extending this run.
But 581 days after his last win at Valencia in 2019, Marquez withstood a powerful attack from KTM rider Miguel Oliveira to end Honda’s premier-class victory drought.
Aleix Espargaro turned Aprilia’s first modern-day start into the holeshot off the line as Marquez pushed past Fabio Quartararo into second place.
Marquez appeared in the last corner in the inside of Espargaro to take the lead, although next time the Aprilia returned the favor in turn 12 on the left-hand corner of Saxony and returned to the front of the field.
Espargaro couldn’t hold his seat, however, when Marquez steamed inside the Aprilia at the last corner.
Behind Ducati, Jack Miller finished third on lap eight ahead of Johann Zarco in the Pramac GP21, shortly afterwards Miguel Oliveira followed the Australian.
Miller and Oliveira demoted Espargaro to fourth place in the first two laps of the 10th Tour, as Quartararo had been pushed back to sixth place and had to fend off Brad Binder’s other factory KTM.
It started raining on the Sachsenring on lap eight, and Marquez took advantage of this moment to set off in anticipation of a flag-to-flag scenario.
On lap 10, Marquez was 1.5 seconds off the field when Oliveira led the Honda man on lap 11 after overtaking Miller in the Sachsen corner.
The rain didn’t get any worse in the new laps, and Marquez’s lead increased to two seconds on lap 15 as Quartararo began working his way back to the podiums on laps 10 and 17 on Zarco and Espargaro.
Two laps later, Quartararo was in third place when Miller’s pace slowed slightly, while the gap at the front between the two slowly narrowed as Oliveira responded to Marquez’s lap times.
By the end of lap 19, Oliveira had reduced the gap to 1.4 seconds and continued to withdraw tenths from the Honda rider until the gap was just over a second at the start of lap 25 of 30.
Oliveira crossed the finish line and was under a second for the first time with five to go when Marquez was visibly beginning to lose traction on his medium-sized rear tire.
Despite the pressure Oliveira put on Marquez, the Honda rider reacted strongly on lap 27 by increasing his lead to 1.2 seconds.
Marquez pounded Oliveira through the first sector of lap 28, extending his lead to 1.5 seconds to end the KTM rider’s chances.
The Honda rider was under no threat until the checkered flag to complete his fairytale comeback win, with Oliveira securing his third consecutive podium.
Quartararo saved third place and extended his lead in the championship to 22 points over Zarco, who fell behind in eighth place on the checkered flag.
Brad Binder fought his way from 13th to fourth on his KTM, ahead of Ducati duo Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller, Aprilias Espargaro came in seventh.
Joan Mir recovered from 16th on the grid to ninth on the Suzuki in front of Honda’s Pol Espargaro and Suzuki team-mate Alex Rins, with Jorge Martin (Pramac), LCRs Takaaki Nakagami, Petronas SRTs Valentino Rossi and Avintia rookie Luca Marini completing the points.
Maverick Vinales got his worst MotoGP result ever on his factory Yamaha, behind a struggling Franco Morbidelli on the two-year-old SRT M1.
Aprilia’s Lorenzo Savadori was an early crash, while LCR’s Alex Marquez and Tech 3’s Danilo Petrucci ended the race after a collision at Turn 1.
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