Sunday was a brilliant day for the Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS riders at Le Mans as Alex Márquez dominates the Moto2 race with team-mate Xavi Vierge finishing a fine fifth.

• The rain that was forecast for lunchtime on Sunday stayed away, and the 25-lap Moto2 race was held in dry, overcast conditions.
• Alex Márquez dominated proceedings to win his first race since October 2017, finishing ahead of countryman Jorge Navarro. After a sitting in second place on lap four, Xavi Vierge eventually scored eleven points for fifth place.
• The result sees Márquez climb to fourth in the World Championship, 14 points behind leader Lorenzo Baldassarri. Vierge jumps to eleventh, 48 points back.

Alex Márquez: 1st, Race Winner

• After qualifying on the front row for the third successive race, Márquez started well and took the lead from Thomas Luthi on lap four.
• As Jorge Navarro applied pressure, Márquez posted his personal best time of the race (1:36.916) on lap 14 to extend his lead to 2 seconds.
• Márquez expertly managed his lead during the final ten laps to win by 1.119 seconds with Navarro second and Augusto Fernandez third.

“It tastes so good to win again after such a long time!”

“I’m so happy! It tastes so good to win again after such a long time. It was a tough race. I was constantly trying to control the gap to the riders behind. I had a really good first seven laps and after that I was more or less trying to keep my concentration. I was not thinking too much, just trying to make it flow on the bike. This is a ‘team win’ because we did a really good job during all of the preseason, and especially this weekend. There were three different conditions to consider and I changed the rear tyre for the race on the grid. Now in the championship we recovered important points. Now we need to maintain this rhythm that we have.”

Xavi Vierge: 5th, + 7.057s

• The 97 got a superb start from 5th place on the grid and gained two places on lap one to sit third.
• Vierge soon lost two positions. After spending most of the race in 4th position, he dropped to fifth on the penultimate lap after a late fight with Brad Binder.
• The Catalan finished 7.057 seconds behind his team-mate to collect a hard-fought fifth – his best result of 2019. Great step forward after a tricky weekend in Le Mans.

“Every race we are getting closer to the top guys”

“I'm happy with the race. We made a step and the most important thing is we know what is holding us back. Now we have two days of testing ahead of us where we can work on that so we can fight for the podium in the next races. I'm really happy with how the weekend went. The team worked amazingly well and every race we are getting closer to the top guys.”

Joan Olivé, Team Manager

“It’s ‘payback’ for all the work we did with the team from the beginning of the year”

“I’m very happy for today’s result. Let’s say it’s ‘payback’ for all the work we did with the team from the beginning of the year. Finally on Sunday we can confirm that we are strong in the championship and we got this good result. Alex did a good job all weekend and today was a difficult situation. The tyre choice was tough and he finally decided on the right one on the grid. This gave us the chance to fight for the victory. He was so focussed, as you could see from his pace. I’m very happy. With Xavi we keep improving, we keep doing step forwards and he managed to get this fifth position, which is just what he needs to build his confidence. Now we have a two-day test in Barcelona, where we can test new parts to help them improve. Now let’s focus on the next races!”