The Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider scored his best result of the season so far to extend his lead in the Rookie of the Year classification with teammate Tom Luthi finishing in sixteenth position.

Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS riders Franco Morbidelli and Tom Luthi raced in sunny but windy spring weather at Phillip Island for the Australian  Grand Prix, round 17 of the MotoGP World Championship.

Franco Morbidelli completed the warm-up in 11th position setting the platform for a strong race. The Italian rider was quickly into thirteenth in opening laps and began a fast and impressive race long duel with Aleix Espargaro. Morbidelli secured 10th place on lap 19 before a late race surge to finish eighth, overtaking Espargaro on the final lap. Morbidelli is 14th in the standings with 46 points and first in the Rookie of Year.

Tom Luthi completed the warm-up in 16th position and was confident going into the race. From the start Luthi quickly moved into seventeenth position in a group with Scott Redding and Takaaki Nakagami. But over the second half of the 27 lap race Luthi struggled with corner speed and finished 16th and for the fourth time this season just out of the championship points.

The next MotoGP World Championship race will be held from November 2 to 4 at Sepang in Australia.

Franco Morbidelli: 8th, +21.805

“I am very happy with my personal best result in MotoGP”

“I am very happy with this result, my personal best result in MotoGP. We did a god job to exported the situation with riders going out of the race. Our tyre choice was the right one and I had good pace especially from half-race and I was able to get into the tope ten. I want to thank my crew for a great job this weekend to sort out the set-up of the bike for the race.”

Tom Luthi: 16th, +48.226

“I’m disappointed to be 16th again and just miss championship points”

“I had a good rhythm for the first ten laps and could stay with the group I was in so I’m little disappointed for this result. But then I lost a lot of edge grip and could not keep corner speed in the fast left-hand corners and I was struggling with understeer and that’s where I lost too much time. I’m disappointed to be 16th again and just miss some championship points.”