Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS riders Franco Morbidelli and Álex Márquez head into this weekend’s German Moto2 Grand Prix brimming with confidence after both scored season best results at the previous round in Assen.

Morbidelli is fired up to return to action after the Italian took a richly deserved first podium for Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS with a masterful ride to third place in the Dutch TT.

Morbidelli rocketed up four places in the World Championship classification to sixth following his second Moto2 podium and he is expecting to launch a formidable challenge for the top three again in Germany.

Sixth at Sachsenring two years ago, the 21-year-old fought for the podium throughout last year’s race but fell out of contention for third place at the final corner.

Márquez is still on a high after scorching to a first top 10 of 2016 in Holland. The Spaniard brilliantly put aside a difficult start to the season with an aggressive ride to eighth place and he is determined to build on that positive result in this weekend’s 29-lap race, which marks the halfway stage of the campaign.

At 3.67km, Sachsenring is one of the shortest and slowest tracks on the World Championship schedule, but its anti-clockwise layout still provides a demanding test for rider and machine.

It is narrow and with multiple slow corners, most of which are left-handers, overtaking is not easy at Sachsenring. A permanent fixture on the calendar since 1998, Sachsenring does however feature the spectacular turn 11, which includes a fast but blind entry and a jaw dropping plunge downhill.

Franco Morbidelli:
“I feel very confident and excited to head to Germany after the great podium in Assen. My confidence is a little bit higher because I have been very competitive in Sachsenring in my two previous races. In 2014 I scored my first top six finish in the World Championship and last year I was in the battle for the podium at the last corner. I crashed at the final corner in an incident with Tito Rabat, so I guess you could say I owe the team a good result this weekend! I know I can be fast in Germany and I am looking forward to being back with my team and working hard to be in the battle for the podium again.”

Álex Márquez:
“I have to admit that Sachsenring is not one of my favourite tracks but the layout is quite nice. It is small and tight and quite unique to any other track we visit and hopefully it will be another good weekend for me after the positive result in Assen. I struggled a lot last year but this weekend we arrive in a completely different situation, with more understanding of the track on a Moto2 machine and more knowledge of what we need for the set-up. It has taken a while to get into the top 10 but we have never stopped working to improve and in Assen we finally got our reward. It will be important to keep the momentum going and I am very motivated to be challenging inside the top 10 again.”