Schrötter & Lüthi bid farewell a hard-fought 2020 season

Marcel Schrötter closed the 2020 season with a solid 12th place in the Grande Premio of Portugal, while Tom Lüthi, unfortunately, could not achieve the longed-for breakthrough before he left the LIQUI MOLY Intact GP team.

A unique season has ended today with the Portuguese Grand Prix in Portimao. Unique, but also an intense season that could only take place thanks to strict regulations in the current Corona times. A big THANK YOU goes to the organizations DORNA as well as IRTA and FIM, who made it possible for us to complete 15 Moto2 races! A big thanks also goes out to our partners who, despite the uncertainties, continued to stand by our side.

As the fastest man of the warm-up on Sunday morning, Marcel Schrötter had caught up to 12th place in the Portugal GP from row seven with another of his lightning starts and a subsequent strong catch-up race. The 27-year-old was thus able to end this up-and-down year in a conciliatory manner and defend his ninth place in the World Championship! The highlight of his season was his third place in the Austrian Grand Prix. The Bavarian secured three top-five results and only a week ago in Valencia, he crossed the finish line in fourth place, just a few tenths behind the race winner!

With 16th place at the Algarve, Tom Lüthi, unfortunately, did not get a happy end to his two-year journey with the LIQUI MOLY Intact GP team. Last year, the Swiss ensured an unforgettable 2019 season, the most successful ever for the Moto2 racing team! The team would like to thank him for that. As the World Championship third, the 34-year-old naturally had high expectations for 2020, but after finishing the preseason as the fastest, the first difficulties began to follow through the year like a red thread. Nonetheless, Tom Lüthi fought his way up again and again and achieved, among others, a fifth place in Austria and in France. As a World Championship 11th he is now leaving the Bavarian squad, which wishes him good luck for his future!

But even if the 2020 season was one of the most difficult so far for LIQUI MOLY Intact GP, Marcel Schrötter and Tom Lüthi ensured that the Moto2 Team finished fifth in the team ranking thanks to 14 x top 10 results, including 5 top 5 successes and one podium!

The team will open a new chapter next week already by completing the first test of the 2021 season from November 26th to 27th in Jerez de la Frontera. On Thursday and Friday, Moto2 rookie Tony Arbolino will have his first opportunity to test ride his new Kalex-Machine.

Marcel Schrötter
P12
Moto2 World Championship 2020 – P9 – 81 Points

“I tried to get the most out of this race. We were fast this morning, even if we didn’t find the best rhythm over the weekend. There have always been good sectors, but I wasn’t able to do consistently strong laps. The traffic, especially in Q1, made it difficult to ride clean on this new track. The first corners are very tight and when you come from further back, it really isn’t easy. Still, I think I handled it pretty well. If I can draw something positive from this season, it is that I controlled my starts pretty well, regardless of where I came from, I could always improve immediately. In this race, I fought hard against Navarro after the start, who then closed the door right in front of me, so I almost saw myself in the gravel. As a result, I, unfortunately, lost four or five positions again. That was a shame because otherwise, we might have been able to keep up with the rhythm from the start. So I had to catch up and risk a lot. My tyres suffered a lot, especially at the rear, although the front didn’t look good either. The last seven or eight laps I found it really difficult to keep the pace without making any mistakes. A twelfth place in the race and ninth place in the world championship – unfortunately no more was possible. It’s been a tough season, but I don’t want to think about where we could have been if we had always been able to use our full potential. I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved, the entire team, our sponsors and my crew. It was an extremely exhausting season, so I am super grateful for everyone and I hope that we can catch up again next year and achieve good results.”

Tom Lüthi
P16
Moto2 World Championship 2020 – P11 – 72 Points

“Unfortunately, we also had to finish the last race without any points. We’re just too far away and unfortunately, we haven’t been able to solve our problems this season. From the test in Jerez, it felt like it was only going backwards. Now the season is over and we don’t have another chance to work on it. For the team as well as for me, things are now heading in a different direction. It’s really a shame that we couldn’t end our time together in a better way. That really disappoints me a lot. It’s still frustrating and difficult to understand. It was a bad season in which we were unfortunately always way too far away. I would like to analyze, understand and learn from this in order to do it better in the future. Despite everything, I am still motivated and believe that as a racer I still have something to offer and I want to show that again in the future.”