MotoGP champion Marc Marquez cites chassis changes, engine performance, concentration and calmness for drop in falls.

This time last year, MotoGP champion Marc Marquez had fallen eleven times and went on to finish the season with 23 spills – more than any other premier-class rider, even without taking into account his many miraculous saves.

The year before, Marquez fell 27 times.

But so far this season the Repsol Honda rider has hit the ground on just six occasions – all in the opening five rounds – putting him on course to challenge his lowest crash tally of eleven falls during the 2014 campaign.

“Last year I had new leathers every time, because I crashed every weekend!” Marquez joked after his Sachsenring victory. “This year, I crashed in the Montmelo test but in a race weekend, since Le Mans, I don’t crash.

“It’s another statistic I try to improve.”

The numerous saves caught on camera this season (pictured) prove Marquez is still taking risks, so what has changed compared to last year?

“It looks like from outside – and from riders like Cal that have tried other bikes – that [the Honda] is not the easiest bike,” Marquez explained, before citing chassis changes, engine performance, calmness and concentration as the key differences for 2019.

“Looks like this year about the chassis, maybe we’re losing in some points [turning] but we gain in other points, which were my critical points. Also it looks like we have more engine, so we can try to be a little bit safer in the braking area.

“It’s all about being able to concentrate. If you are concentrate very, very much on the bike, then you can save many crashes. I crash less this year, but you count how many saves I did.

“For that reason, I crash less, but I save more.”

“He had six this weekend [at Sachsenring]. If you look at the video, he crashed six times,” quipped LCR’s Cal Crutchlow. “If it was me or anyone else, we would have crashed six times. He saved six times.”

“It’s true,” Marquez added. “In the first corner I saved three or four times, but it’s like this if you concentrate.

“For example, in the Montmelo test I was not 100% concentrated and I just lose the front and I crash. Because I was not focused enough.

“This is the way to ride the Honda and to find the limit and to be the fastest.”

And how has the five-time MotoGP champion improved his concentration relative to previous years?

“It’s the experience. It’s the atmosphere inside the team, all these things help,” he replied.

“I don’t mean that last year or two years ago I was not concentrating. But when you are concentrating, when you have more experience and when you understand that it’s not necessary to be 100% in every lap of practice, then this helps a lot.

“I try to be calmer in practice.”

Also helping Marquez stay calm will be the commanding 58-point title lead over Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso…

Cal Crutchlow thinks Marc Marquez’s Mugello performance signaled the end of Andrea Dovizioso and Ducati’s 2019 MotoGP title hopes.

When Marc Marquez beat Andrea Dovizioso for second place at Ducati’s home Italian MotoGP, the 2019 title chase was all but decided in favour of the Honda rider.

That’s the opinion of Cal Crutchlow, who says the championship was “finished four races ago… At Mugello, a place where [Marquez] really struggled last year, he finished second and battled with them hard.”

After losing out to Dovizioso by a fraction in the Qatar season opener, and later falling in Austin, Marquez has outscored his nearest title rival for the past six races in a row and entered the summer break with a huge 58-point advantage.

While the latest Honda can be a ‘reluctant’ in the corners, it is a match for the straight-line performance of the Ducati, helping Marquez battle the Desmosedicis at power circuits where they previously held a clear advantage.

But Crutchlow also feels Dovizioso is not riding as well as in the past.

“[Dovi’s] not riding as well as last year, I believe. I don’t know what’s going on inside the garage, I don’t know the bike he is riding, etc,” Crutchlow said.

“If you look at him two years ago, not even last year, I think he was in a stronger moment than he is now. But I think Dovi rides better when he doesn’t ride for the championship, when he goes for the race wins.”

The LCR Honda rider added: “I think Dovi has lost his way. And it’s quite clear to see, to be honest. In general, in the last races he’s not been so fast. In many of the practices, I think he has more lost the way, and he’s not using the bike’s strengths.

“Dovi’s a fantastic and great rider, a good friend of mine, but the tracks where he could have taken advantage of Marc, I think he’s lost that opportunity.

“Hopefully he can go a little bit faster, because we need the championship to be better than the points difference is at the moment.

“All credit to Marc, he’s riding better this year than he’s ever ridden before because I don’t think the bike in some areas is as good. He’s making it work.”

And when Marquez couldn’t win at Mugello and Assen, the Honda rider switched his focus to beating Dovizioso.

“To me, [the title race is] finished. I think you all think the same as me, you’re just not saying it,” commented Crutchlow, who joined Marquez and Maverick Vinales on the Sachsenring podium, with Dovizioso back in fifth.

During the German Grand Prix weekend, the Englishman was also asked about speculation that Marquez’s injured Repsol Honda team-mate Jorge Lorenzo may consider retirement and rumours surrounding a future MotoGP move for Marc’s younger brother Alex.

“First of all, you have to have respect for Lorenzo. He hasn’t made any comment. It’s probably just made up as per usual. I didn’t see anybody make a comment from Lorenzo saying what he’s going to do,” Crutchlow said.

“That’s it. I don’t think about moving. I think about my team doing a good job and rewarding them today.

“I do think Alex deserves to move up to MotoGP, honestly speaking. He’s done a good job [in Moto2], but at the moment there’s no room. If something or someone stops or somebody moves out of MotoGP, then maybe.

“But he has to come on the right bike, because you see with the rookies, you see which bikes are easy to go on and which is not. So let’s wait and see.

“I think he’s doing a great job. I think there’s two manufacturers that he should go to, but he’s going to have to wait if he wants to go to them…”

The two ‘rookie’-friendly’ manufacturers are assumed to be Yamaha and Suzuki, with Alex Marquez’s Moto2 team now confident they have a fighting chance of retaining the Spaniard for 2020.

Crutchlow is currently joint eighth in the world championship, three points behind top satellite rider Jack Miller (Pramac Ducati).

Valentino Rossi jokes ‘I’m not so bad’ when quizzed on current MotoGP losing streak, remains adamant more victories are possible and that he won’t need to change crew chief…

Valentino Rossi pointed out he has fought back from a longer losing streak and jokingly highlighted his all-time MotoGP win record, when asked if his current victory drought is difficult to deal with.

Rossi hasn’t stood on the top step of the podium since the Dutch TT in 2017, a barren run of 36-races. But the Italian previously endured a 44-race losing streak from Phillip Island 2010 until Assen 2013, including both seasons at Ducati.

“For sure I don’t like [the losing streak] but it happened already another time in my career and I was able to come back,” Rossi said.

The Doctor dominates the premier-class win table courtesy of 89 victories since his debut in 2000. Giacomo Agostini is next closest on 68 wins, while the top active rider is Honda’s reigning champion Marc Marquez on 49 victories.

As such, Rossi quipped life would be bearable if he did not manage to win again – but then quickly made clear his desire to do so.

“I’ve won 89 races in MotoGP… I’m not so bad! So I can ‘manage’ if I remain at 89!” he laughed.

“But we don’t give up because it’s true that I’m old for sure, but last year I was already old and also five years ago I was already old.”

Rossi – who has won nine races in the last five years and lost out on the 2015 title at the final round – is now seeking to become only the fourth rider in history over the age of 40 (and first since Jack Finlay in 1977) to win a premier-class motorcycle grand prix.

What makes Rossi’s current dry spell unique is that he has recently been outperformed by two riders on the same machine – factory Yamaha team-mate Maverick Vinales and satellite rookie star Fabio Quartararo, whom Rossi feels are able to get more from the set-up now needed to go fast on the M1.

“Sincerely I don’t feel in my mind that I give up, or that I’m not concentrating, or I don’t have enough motivation to arrive at the race weekend. So there is no reason why this year I am 20 seconds slower than I was here last year,” Rossi said of his disappointing Sachsenring race, where he finished in eighth place and 19.110s behind Marquez.

“I think we can understand and we can recover, but it is a difficult situation because sincerely I expected to be strong [at Sachsenring], but in reality, no.”

Although Rossi won at Assen during his 2013 return to Yamaha, he finished the season almost 100 points behind team-mate Jorge Lorenzo. It marked the first time the #46 had finished lower than a team-mate in the world championship, without being injured.

Deciding a major change was needed, Rossi announced a shock split from crew chief Jerry Burgess and began a new partnership with Silvano Galbusera.

Given Rossi’s current predicament, might Galbusera’s role now be in danger?

“I don’t think so because we work hard, I feel good with all my team and it’s already a long time that we are together with Silvano,” said the nine-time world champion. “We have to find a way [with the team] like this, I think.”

Runner-up in Argentina and Austin at the start of the season, Rossi’s run of three successive DNFs and an eighth place in Germany means he has now lost fifth in the world championship to Vinales.

The Spaniard is the only Yamaha rider to have won since Rossi at Assen 2017, spraying victory champagne at Phillip Island last season and Assen this season.

Rossi’s current MotoGP contract runs until the end of 2020.