Tenth for Marcel Schrotter and eleventh for Tom Luthi in the #CatalanGP

After the warm-up on Sunday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya took place in bright sunshine, but quite a fresh 13°C, the sky got cloudy by the start of the Moto2 race, but this time it stayed dry, unlike Misano a week ago. The temperature changes that weekend made it tricky for some riders and even more difficult to build up enough grip levels and thus confidence in the front wheel.

Marcel Schrötter started the race day in Barcelona with a promising warm-up in fifth place. Even if he suffered a small crash at the end of the session, the 27-year-old had a good feeling for the upcoming 22-lap race. His 14th starting position was not the best and after two braking errors at the beginning, the Intact GP rider had to work his way up to the group in front of him, which consisted of Marcos Ramirez and teammate Tom Lüthi.

Tom Lüthi, who lost two positions at the start from row four and fought his way back to the ninth position, tried everything to keep his pursuers Ramirez and Schrötter in check. But he couldn’t keep up the speed, lost ground, and had to give way to the Spaniard first, followed by his pit neighbor.

Marcel Schrötter led the group of three when entering the final lap, but due to another braking mistake, he lost his ninth place and crossed the finish line of the Circuit de Barcelona in tenth place. A shifting error in Turn 10 made Tom Lüthi lose the connection to the group in front of him, forcing him to finish the race in eleventh position.

The LIQUI MOLY Intact GP team will now have a short one-week break before the next Grand Prix triple-header awaits. Le Mans hosts the French GP from October 9th to 11th, after which the MotoGP circus will travel to Aragon in Spain for another two weeks of action in a row.

Marcel Schrötter
P10
Moto2 World Championship 2020 – P11 – 54 Points

“The only positive thing about today’s race was that I was able to set relatively consistent times. I managed to close the gap to Tom and Ramirez after getting off to a pretty good start. The first corners were also very good. However, I braked late into turn ten on the first or second lap without having ridden too aggressively. At the beginning I had a lot of trouble stopping the bike, the rear wheel kept coming up, which then cost me three or four places at once. That was actually my main problem and I think that apart from that I could have stayed within the front field quite well. It was a difficult race because it was very slippery. Of course, I wanted more and so towards the end I made a braking mistake again going into turn ten while trying to defend myself. As a result, I lost my ninth place again and something like that just shouldn’t happen. That is of course super annoying, but it was the mistakes at the beginning that cost us the race. We now have to see why we sometimes perform so differently, because although I feel good, there are no good lap times coming in the next session. We try hard, we feel good and suddenly nothing works anymore and that can’t just be due to me or the motorcycle. We urgently need to get this under control.”

Tom Lüthi
P11
Moto2 World Championship 2020 – P9 – 57 Points

“It was again a very disappointing race. Eleventh place is not enough and there is nothing to discuss. I didn’t have the speed from start to finish and had a lot of trouble keeping up with it in the race. I really struggled and although I thought that it would be better with the new tyres, that I could keep up, I had to realize that unfortunately, it wasn’t the case. I rode extremely over the limit, which meant that I couldn’t build up a proper rhythm. I lost time and then I went backwards step by step because the rear tyre started to deteriorate. I was then involved in the fight with Ramirez and Marcel and was able to overtake Marcel again because I was better on the brakes, but then I jumped out of first gear at turn ten. I almost crashed as a result. So it all came together and unfortunately we were both very far away today. We are now going home and will attack at full speed again at Le Mans.”