Alex Márquez turns his fortunes around by easing to his fourth Moto2 win of 2019 and re-claiming the lead in the World Championship as Xavi Vierge crashes out after contact with another rider.

• After overnight showers, riders took to a wet track in morning warm-up. Come 12:20 however and the Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS team-mates started racing on a dry track, in the sun and with ambient temperatures of 18 degrees.
• Putting the difficulties of a late crash in FP2 and machine issues in FP3 behind him, Alex Márquez claimed pole position, the fastest lap and the race win in what was a perfect weekend at one of his less favoured tracks.
• An aggressive move from Thomas Luthi on Vierge at turn one knocked the Catalan off while he was fifth, the second occasion this has happened in the past week.
• The MotoGP World Championship now enjoys a three-week summer break before resuming in Brno, Czech Republic, on 2nd August.

Alex Marquez, 1st

• Starting from his first pole position of 2019, Márquez dropped to fifth after an average start, but quickly recovered to third by lap 3.
• After an exciting battle with early leader Iker Lecuona, Márquez made the race’s decisive move at Turn 1 on lap 7 when he passed his countryman for first position.
• Márquez posted the fastest lap of the race – a 1m 24.317s – on lap 17 to extend his lead before cruising to his seventh win in the Moto2 class by 1.2 seconds.
• His latest win puts Márquez at the top of the championship on 136 points, 8 ahead of second placed Luthi.

“I’m really happy. I still can’t believe we won it!”

“I’m really happy. I still can’t believe we won it! The weekend started in a difficult way. Saturday morning in particular was tough to manage but in qualifying we did a great job and made a big step forward. Today in the race I didn’t have a lot of rhythm but I knew by making a good, patient race without many mistakes we would have an opportunity to be in the top five or even on the podium. In the end we won with a gap! It was unbelievable when I saw my lead on the straight. Now I want to enjoy this. We’re leading the championship again and I’m going to enjoy the holidays before coming back even stronger.”

Xavi Vierge, DNF

• Vierge was fully motivated at the beginning of the race, and enjoyed a brilliant start to sit fourth after the first turn.
• The 21-year was engaged in an exciting five-rider fight for the podium places, and appeared capable of scoring his first top 3 of the year.
• Unfortunately Vierge suffered serious misfortune for the second time in two weeks as Luthi ran into the side of the Spaniard, forcing him to crash on lap 13.

“I’m sure I’ll return stronger than ever”

“One more time it happened! I don’t have any words. We just have to take the positives. I was competitive all weekend and the team did a great job. Now it’s the summer break. I’m sure I’ll return stronger than ever. And the most important thing: I want to congratulate my team-mate Alex, who did an incredible first half of the season, as well as all the team.”

Joan Olive, Team Manager

“We are very happy to finish the race with victory, especially when the weekend didn’t start very well with Alex. There were some problems, particularly on the second day, when he couldn’t ride too much. But we ended the weekend with pole position and the win. Now we go into the summer break as leaders in the championship. We need to keep our feet on the ground because it’s a long year. But we’re in a good way. With Xavi unfortunately he was not lucky at all. He had good pace from the beginning. After a few laps Luthi went very wide at the first corner and pushed him into the gravel. It was something he really didn’t deserve. We just have to keep working and the results will come for him this year.”