Race report

Moto2 Barcelona

Barcelona Moto2: Marquez takes points lead with third win

Alex Marquez tallied up a hat-trick of victories in the 2019 Moto2 season after beating Tom Luthi in the Catalan Grand Prix to move into the lead of the championship.

Lewis Duncan

Edited: Jun 16, 2019, 11:17 AM

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Alex Marquez, Marc VDS Racing

A crash for Lorenzo Baldassarri, who led the standings by two points coming into the round, early on allowed Marquez to head the championship after prevailing in a battle with ex-MotoGP man Luthi.

Luthi grabbed the holeshot at the start on his Intact GP machine, while poleman Augusto Fernandez recovered from a poor launch to keep Sam Lowes at bay in second at the first turn.

The Pons rider seized the lead at Turn 10 on lap five when Luthi ran slightly wide, though his time at the front lasted a lap, with Luthi hitting the front at the first corner at the start of the seventh tour.

Marquez was hung out to dry at the start, and was unable to advance on his starting spot of sixth. However, the Marc VDS rider soon found himself into third, and had closed down the leaders by lap seven.

He took second from Fernandez exiting the last corner, and trailed Luthi by half a second for a handful of laps before firing his bike past at the first turn on lap 13.

Luthi kept the pressure on Marquez briefly, but made several small mistakes at Turn 4 in his pursuit, with the Marc VDS rider twisting the screw with five laps remaining.

Quickly opening his lead out to over two seconds, Marquez cruised to the line to move seven points clear of Luthi in the standings.

Luthi slipped closer and closer into the grasp of third-placed Jorge Navarro as the race wound down, but the Speed Up rider could do nothing to take runner-up spot from him.

Fernandez dropped to fourth at the chequered flag, with Enea Bastianini (Italtrans) being the top rookie across the line in fifth after Navarro's teammate Fabio Di Giannantonio fell out of third on lap 11.

Luca Marini was sixth on the Sky VR46 Kalex, fending off the sister Intact and Marc VDS bikes of Marcel Schrotter and Xavi Vierge.

Lowes's podium hopes faded early on, with the Gresini rider finishing ninth in the end, while Tetsuta Nagashima completed the top 10 on the sole SAG bike across the line.

His teammate Remy Gardner crashed on lap one after contact with Baldassarri at Turn 4, who fell at Turn 10 on lap seven to register his third DNF of the campaign and drop 23 points behind Marquez to fourth in the standings.

Jonas Folger, making his first race appearance since the '17 Aragon MotoGP round as stand-in for the injured Mattia Pasini at Petronas Sprinta Racing, was 19th on his comeback.

Cla Rider Bike Laps Time Gap 1 Spain Alex Marquez
Kalex 22 38'25.678 2 Switzerland Thomas Luthi
Kalex 22 38'27.667 1.989 3 Spain Jorge Navarro
Speed Up 22 38'28.210 2.532 4 Spain Augusto Fernandez
Kalex 22 38'29.480 3.802 5 Italy Enea Bastianini
Kalex 22 38'33.150 7.472 6 Italy Luca Marini
Kalex 22 38'39.674 13.996 7 Germany Marcel Schrotter
Kalex 22 38'40.243 14.565 8 Spain Xavi Vierge
Kalex 22 38'40.631 14.953 9 United Kingdom Sam Lowes
Kalex 22 38'41.576 15.898 10 Japan Tetsuta Nagashima
Kalex 22 38'43.625 17.947 11 South Africa Brad Binder
KTM 22 38'46.569 20.891 12 Italy Andrea Locatelli
Kalex 22 38'46.608 20.930 13 Italy Nicolo Bulega
Kalex 22 38'48.030 22.352 14 Italy Simone Corsi
Kalex 22 38'50.870 25.192 15 Spain Jorge Martin
KTM 22 38'52.810 27.132 16 Switzerland Dominique Aegerter
MV 22 38'56.073 30.395 17 Thailand Somkiat Chantra
Kalex 22 38'57.908 32.230 18 Netherlands Bo Bendsneyder
NTS 22 38'58.993 33.315 19 Germany Jonas Folger
Kalex 22 39'05.119 39.441 20 United States Joe Roberts
KTM 22 39'08.278 42.600 21 Indonesia Dimas Ekky Pratama
Kalex 22 39'10.139 44.461 22 South Africa Steven Odendaal
NTS 22 39'13.301 47.623 23 Italy Marco Bezzecchi
KTM 22 39'20.589 54.911 24 Germany Lukas Tulovic
KTM 22 39'25.454 59.776 25 Andorra Xavi Cardelus
KTM 22 39'47.742 1'22.064 United Kingdom Jake Dixon
KTM 21 37'21.971 1 Lap Italy Stefano Manzi
MV 16 29'42.559 6 Laps Italy Fabio Di Giannantonio
Speed Up 13 23'55.903 9 Laps Italy Lorenzo Baldassarri
Kalex 6 10'35.258 16 Laps Spain Iker Lecuona
KTM 2 4'12.724 20 Laps Australia Remy Gardner
Kalex View full results

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