Sachsenring Moto2: Marquez bags fourth win in five races

Marquez, who had taken pole on Saturday after fighting through Q1, was sluggish off the line, allowing Luca Marini past and making contact with Iker Lecuona at Turn 1 to drop into fifth place.

Marcel Schrotter and Lecuona then worked their way past Marini at the end of the opening lap, before the local rider ran wide, releasing Lecuona into the lead.

Marquez soon recovered to second, and launched himself down the inside of Lecuona at the first corner on the fifth lap, only to run wide. He then made a move stick at the same corner two laps later.

Lecuona stayed with Marquez and was briefly ahead on the 10th lap, but was swiftly pushed down to second - and then to third place on the main straight as Brad Binder joined their battle.

The factory KTM man had pushed through from 17th on the grid, but his charge ended just short of Marquez, and as he and Lecuona continued to scrap Marquez began to break away.

Marquez was over two seconds in the clear by the time Schrotter caught up to and re-passed both Lecuona and Binder, with the German likewise unable to stop Marquez's lead from growing.

Marquez eased off in the final laps, taking the chequered flag by 1.2 seconds over Binder, who had worked his way back past Schrotter to secure his second consecutive runner-up finish.

Lecuona tried to challenge Schrotter for the final spot on the podium on the last lap, but crashed at the last corner.

This promoted Fabio Di Giannantonio into fourth place, the Speed Up rookie recording by far the best finish of his debut campaign so far.

Tom Luthi took fifth place despite having served a long-lap penalty for taking out Marquez's teammate Xavi Vierge at Turn 1.

The fifth-place finish leaves Luthi eight points behind Marquez, with Assen winner Augusto Fernandez and erstwhile championship leader Lorenzo Baldassarri - who completed the top seven behind Luthi - now 34 and 39 points respectively adrift of the championship leader.

Jorge Navarro (Speed Up) took eighth after overtaking Binder's teammate Jorge Martin, as the Moto3 champion settled for the best finish of his season in ninth and Marini rounded out the top 10.

Jake Dixon (Angel Nieto KTM) was the only rider to crash besides Lecuona and Vierge, as the Briton fell at the very first corner of the race.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Laps	Time
1	73	Alex Marquez	Kalex	28
2	41	Brad Binder	KTM	28	1.208
3	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	28	1.630
4	21	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Speed Up	28	4.116
5	12	Thomas Luthi	Kalex	28	5.191
6	40	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	28	6.332
7	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	28	6.526
8	9	Jorge Navarro	Speed Up	28	8.177
9	88	Jorge Martin	KTM	28	10.538
10	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	28	13.591
11	22	Sam Lowes	Kalex	28	13.656
12	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	28	13.836
13	87	Remy Gardner	Kalex	28	13.996
14	33	Enea Bastianini	Kalex	28	15.064
15	5	Andrea Locatelli	Kalex	28	17.234
16	64	Bo Bendsneyder	NTS	28	18.077
17	94	Jonas Folger	Kalex	28	18.232
18	11	Nicolo Bulega	Kalex	28	19.852
19	72	Marco Bezzecchi	KTM	28	26.424
20	77	Dominique Aegerter	MV	28	30.791
21	24	Simone Corsi	Kalex	28	36.693
22	62	Stefano Manzi	MV	28	37.502
23	4	Steven Odendaal	NTS	28	37.655
24	3	Lukas Tulovic	KTM	28	38.526
25	16	Joe Roberts	KTM	28	48.740
26	18	Xavi Cardelus	KTM	28	1'15.427
	27	Iker Lecuona	KTM	27
	97	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	12
	96	Jake Dixon	KTM
View full results