Marcel Schrotter 15th and Tom Luthi 17th in tough #CzechGP

The LIQUI MOLY Intact GP team ended a difficult weekend in Brno with a poor yield of just one championship point, after Marcel Schrötter finished 15th in the Czech Grand Prix and Tom Lüthi became 17th.

The hard work that the racing team from Memmingen had to put in at Brno in the Czech Republic was not rewarded in the end. But the season has only just started and next week from August 14th to 16th, the Moto2 team will have their next chance at the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring to fight their way out of the low and finally regain their usual strength.

Marcel Schrötter was in good spirits after a promising qualifying on Saturday and a consistent rhythm during the warm-up session on Sunday morning at the Automotodrom Brno. The 27-year-old stormed from the third row into fifth place and was within the leading group when, after only three laps, he was already struggling with diminishing tyres and could do nothing but try to fend off his attackers as best he could. Ultimately, he had little chance of holding his competitors behind and dropped back lap by lap into 15th place. With just one more championship point, he also slipped to 15th place in the World Championship ranking.

The final result of the 19-lap race didn’t look much brighter for team-mate Tom Lüthi either. Position 17, however, was at least a small upward trend after the unsuccessful qualifying and the resulting 26th starting position. Even in the warm-up practice, he was able to catch up to three tenths to the top. The Swiss also couldn’t make any progress halfway through the race with decreasing tyres. Now it’s time to stay focused and to look ahead, because the season still has ten, more likely eleven races to offer.

Marcel Schrötter

“We knew beforehand that we would have problems after a few laps because it was already clear in the practice sessions that the tyres simply wouldn’t be working well over the distance. I don’t know why it was so extreme because the days before, we were still competitive on used tyres. Unfortunately, I was completely lost by lap two or three and couldn’t do anything about it. I was overtaken from all sides and just had no chance. I thought ok, maybe the abrasion goes faster for me at the beginning, so that I have more advantage again towards the end, but it only got worse. I’m very disappointed and angry too, of course, but we’re really all doing our best here. I thought that despite the difficulties, the arm surgery, and everything, we could still have a good weekend, but a result like that is just super disappointing. We now have to analyze everything and see whether we can find an approach that we can continue to work on in Spielberg with full concentration and motivation. The speed is there, we still have many races coming up, but we clearly have to improve our performance in the race itself. My arm hasn’t been a problem for a long time, which makes it all the more annoying. I am very sorry for my team.”

Tom Lüthi

“The whole weekend was just very disappointing. There isn’t much to say about the race. The starting position was the worst I’ve ever started from I think and yet I tried everything to fight my way towards the points. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. The race was difficult for everyone with the tyres that were wearing off so quickly, but it really hit us extremely hard because we had to make a lot of changes throughout the weekend. We tried a lot with the bike to find a direction and to understand where we have to go. Because of the many changes, it took me a while to get used to the bike in the race. The fight in the back is brutally tough, the speed was not enough to overtake easily and to pave my way forward. Unfortunately, the point-positions were quickly out of reach. It’s hard for all of us, but we won’t give up, we continue to work hand in hand and I am convinced that we will fight our way out of this low together. We stay motivated and continue next week.”