Third in championship “good target” for “8 out of 10” Marc Marquez

Marc Marquez has given himself a grade of 8 out of 10 for his performances so far at Gresini Ducati as he braces for a battle with Enea Bastianini over third in the MotoGP World Championship.

Marquez currently holds third in the standings, 56 points behind Francesco Bagnaia and 24 from Jorge Martin, by 11 points over Bastianini, whose factory Ducati seat the Spaniard takes over in 2025.

"This first part of the season has been good. We can say not super good because we did some mistakes,” Marquez said after charging from 13th on the grid to claim his fifth Gresini podium from nine rounds on Sunday at the Sachsenring.

“It can be a good target to try to be in the first three positions of the championship, because it will not be easy to keep Enea behind. He is a fast rider.

“Apart from that, the only thing that we need to work on in the second part of the season is to try to make a completely good [problem free] weekend.

“We will keep fighting, keep learning from the top two guys inside Ducati, which is Martin and Bagnaia. They are a bit faster than us.”

Marquez will also be seeking to eradicate his own mistakes when the MotoGP season restarts at Silverstone in early August, explaining his grade so far:

“For me, eight [out of ten]. It was a good start of the season but a few mistakes. Especially Austin and the Sprint race in Assen were the two big mistakes.

“The races were acceptable, but we were a bit inconsistent during the weekends.

“We saved things in Le Mans. We saved in different races, but we need to find a way to be a bit more constant during the weekend, straightaway into Q2 and try to improve the Saturdays.”

The next best rider in the world championship on a GP23 Ducati is VR46's Fabio di Giannantonio, 74 points behind Marquez in eighth place.

Brother and team-mate Alex Marquez, who joined Marc on the Sachsenring podium, is tenth in the world championship.