How Marquez is stealing the MotoGP title

There's a reasonable chance that Marc Marquez will leave this weekend's German Grand Prix leading the MotoGP points by the equivalent of one race win, and be more than the equivalent of two wins clear of the rider in third place. Riding a Honda in 2016, that represents a supreme first half of the season.

If he can ultimately steal the title from Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, Marquez's third championship in four years might just be his best yet. And this is a 23-year-old who won it as a rookie in 2013, then started his successful title defence by winning the first 10 races of '14.

The current state of play is that Marquez heads to the Sachsenring 24 points clear of Lorenzo and 42 ahead of Rossi. And the Sachsenring is one of those happy hunting grounds for Marquez - he is undefeated there in MotoGP and, if you include Moto2 and 125cc, has won every race he's started there since 2010.

When he clicks with a track, he clicks with a track. Especially venues where left-handers dictate your overall pace, to suit a natural style found and developed on dirt tracks. He maintained his perfect Austin record earlier this year with a fourth victory, and has a similar affinity with Termas de Rio Hondo, where he also won a week earlier.

Those two wins in the Americas are Marquez's only two this year, but when you throw in five podiums, it is his metronomic consistency that is central to his title bid. The only blot on his copybook is a crash at Le Mans, but even then he was able to get back on his bike and salvage three points.

Lorenzo has failed to score in two races, once when he fell at Termas de Rio Hondo and then at Barcelona when he was struggling and collected by Andrea Iannone. Rossi has three non-scores, crashes at Austin and Assen, along with his engine failure while fighting for the lead at Mugello.

As a result, Marquez's current advantage is the most any rider has enjoyed this year, and it's basically the opposite of his 2015 campaign, which included a run of three crashes in five early-season races.

Over the winter, Marquez acknowledged that a different, less all-attack approach might have helped, as he tried to tame a troubled Honda. That is a natural part of a young sportsperson adjusting his approach with the benefit of experience, maturing and refining his craft.

To his absolute credit, Marquez has made good on that. At Jerez, he knew the Yamahas were too far up the road, so he backed off, even though he admitted to being "conflicted". He threw the cautious approach out of the window while fighting Lorenzo for the win at Mugello, but it emerged again at Assen - knowing Lorenzo was nowhere and Rossi out of the race, Marquez settled for second behind new winner Jack Miller.

Marquez's adjusted approach does not mean he is not making mistakes. It's just that, so far, they have been confined to the sessions that do not count for the big prizes. Like in practice and qualifying at Termas de Rio Hondo. Friday afternoon at Austin. Qualifying at Assen, after somehow saving what would have been a massive high-side during the third practice session on Saturday morning.

Whether by force or nature, Marquez has managed to find the limit before a race, other than at Le Mans, and stick with it during the races when others have erred. That process has been complicated this year by Michelin's new control tyres, which have defined several grands prix.

"He's been lucky to crash a lot of time in the practices but not in the race," Lorenzo said. "[But] he looks a little bit more concentrated when he cannot win."

Such luck - little moments and distinctions - can define title fights. Think of Rossi's Mugello engine failure, Lorenzo also had a failure that day, but with about 90 seconds to go in the Sunday morning warm-up...

But that's the way this year has bounced, and the notion of luck does little to detract from Marquez's performances. Imagine if the Honda was closer to the level of Yamaha's M1, or its acceleration deficit not as pronounced as it is?

Its current woes revolve around its engine and electronics. Even last year, Marquez was struggling with an aggressive engine, and Honda is understood to have overhauled its philosophy in 2016, following Yamaha and Ducati's lead with a counter-rotating crankshaft.

That new engine was not entirely sorted by the time it had to be sealed before the season opener in Qatar. In any other year, it might have been OK, Honda able to manage it to a point using electronics. But this year's change to a new control ECU has taken that out of its arsenal. It lacked the Magneti Marelli experience of other manufacturers, namely Ducati, and has been playing catch-up since starting late.

The less you know about the electronics, the more changes you are likely to want to make. But the less you know about the electronics, the longer those changes take, even if you get those changes right the first time.

"Changing things takes so long," LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow explained at Jerez in April. "You can't do stuff in sessions anymore.

"Last year, I used to say, 'I need less engine braking in Turn 9' and bam. I used to walk into the garage and say it, and by the time I got back on the bike it was already done. Now, it takes a long, long time.

"Ducati are the only ones we think that can really do it fast, because they have a programme that they are able to do it. It's already preset, loaded and done. They have a template ready. That is one area where Honda has really improved, they are doing a good job, because at one time we were, not lost with it, but it was more difficult for us as a manufacturer."

The net result is that putting the Honda's power to the ground has been tougher than it could or should be. The most visible - and costly - example would be the run out of the final corner on the last lap at Mugello, when Marquez got a wheelie trying desperately to keep Lorenzo at bay, and was pipped to the line by just 0.019 seconds.

Honda struggled with the engine and electronics during pre-season testing, but Marquez found a direction in the last hour of running. He admitted during the Qatar race weekend that there was still an element of trial and error, but again they got it right enough and he finished third in the race. That was basically a dream result given how dire things had looked over winter, when Honda was a long way off.

Since then, Marquez has continued to pile on the points and is a deserving championship leader. You only have to compare his output with that of his team-mate Dani Pedrosa, who has won 28 MotoGP races and finished runner-up in the championship three times. And even Crutchlow, who would not put himself in Marquez's bracket, but has podiums to his name in his career.

Having won two of 2015's last four races, Pedrosa was also hurt earlier by the run of stiffer construction rear tyres from Michelin and his diminutive frame, a combination that meant he was not getting enough weight over the rear wheel to generate tyre temperature and grip.

"I have a problem to give 100% because we lose so much time in acceleration and turning, and that's where my strong point is," Pedrosa said at Barcelona, where he switched to a newer frame and finished third.

"We are trying very hard to be better, but it's very difficult with the new regulations to make improvements on the bike. We need to make some improvement on the electronics, but we don't have enough experience to make a big jump for that yet.

"We don't have all the answers, unfortunately, but we can only push hard."

In discussing Miller and his tough start to life in MotoGP, even Lorenzo noted: "It's not easy to be fast with his Honda because it looks like Honda in general have some difficulties, especially with the engine to be competitive and to be in control."

Unlike Pedrosa, Marquez decided not to adopt the updated frame Honda brought to Barcelona. That means Marquez is still on the 2014 Honda chassis, essentially, having gone back to it halfway through last year.

Trying to recover the time being lost under acceleration, Marquez - new conservative approach or not - attacks braking areas, stopping late and hard and trusting his feel to control the bike as it dances around beneath him. It's impressive to watch, and visibly different to the smooth approaches of Lorenzo and Rossi.

Keeping that trusty 2014 chassis gives Marquez that little bit more confidence in the front end. Crutchlow, for instance, has found the situation "impossible" at times and had a series of front-end crashes, even having tried a variety of braking set-ups to go with something resembling Marquez's approach.

While there have been no easy answers for Pedrosa or Crutchlow, Marquez is picking the Honda up and taking it places it probably should not be. He is the only factory rider with a perfect record over his team-mate in qualifying, and other than Le Mans and Assen has not looked like being beaten in a race by another Honda.

Over Pedrosa, Marquez's average qualifying advantage this year is 0.6988 seconds. Daylight, and that does not include Assen, when Pedrosa was not able to get out of Q1, equating to five places on the grid. By comparison - and also excluding similar nuances - the factory Yamaha and Ducati pairs have been split by about half of that margin, 0.3471s and 0.3710s respectively.

That data is not a knock on Pedrosa, it simply shows how much more Marquez has been able to get out of the current RC213V.

There is an argument that many of the shortcomings of Honda's MotoGP bikes have been masked over recent years by 'freak' riders - think Marquez and Casey Stoner - leading development but punching above a bike from what is perceived by some as a stubborn manufacturer.

Honda has made progress this year and its bike will continue to improve. But if Marquez manages to snatch a title that should really be going to a Yamaha rider, what he has done in this first half of the season is where he has won the war.