Tony Arbolino was in the thick of the victory fight for much of the German GP before a massive moment at Turn 7 lost him crucial time.

• After the heavy storm that engulfed the Sachsenring on Saturday evening, conditions had cleared for Sunday. The 9^th round of the Moto2 season took place under overcast skies and cooler ambient temperatures of 19 degrees.
• As was witnessed in each of the past three years, the Sachsenring was packed to attendance as 98,015 fans watched on from the grandstands on Sunday.
• Tony Arbolino has been the lone Elf Marc VDS Racing Team entrant at this year’s German GP as team-mate Filip Salac was declared unfit on Friday morning. The Czech rider hadn’t fully recovered 100% from his Assen crash last Friday.

/// TONY ARBOLINO, 9^th , +7.018 s.

• Starting 6^th on the inside of the front row, Tony got a sensational getaway to place 3^rd on the lap 1. By the 7^th lap he was leading an exciting 5-rider fight for victory.
• But a near-high-side at Turn 7 on lap 18 of 25 caused him to drop back to 6^th. And the Italian struggled to maintain his pace in the closing laps as his feeling with the rear tyre worsened. Although 9^th at the end, he finished just 7s off victor Fermin Aldeguer.
• The 7 points gained for 9^th sees Tony climb 2 places in the World Championship to 11^th with 50 points.

“Some problems in the last few laps which made me lose time and lose positions”

“That was a long race! It was quite tough to manage the rear tyre and make sure we had some grip left at the end. I had some problems in the last few laps which made me lose time and lose positions. But we need to understand what exactly happened. I’m pretty angry because I don’t think I deserved the drop of the rear tyre because I felt like I had been managing it well. So, we now have a clear target for the next races, which is to work hard on the final part of the race, so we can be even stronger and fight for better results.”