19/06/2022

Marcel Schrötter chasing podium to the wire in Sachsenring heat battle

On this race Sunday, the popular Sachsenring turned into a boiling pot. Not only because of the subtropical conditions but also because 95.214 enthusiastic fans cheered on their German LIQUI MOLY Intact GP rider, Marcel Schrötter, right to the end in a thrilling battle for the final podium spot. The German eventually had to settle for fourth place, while teammate Jeremy Alcoba also finished a solid race in P20.

It was a picture-perfect race weekend: bright sunshine, packed grandstands and a German rider in the fight for the Moto2 podium. The dream of a podium almost came true for Marcel Schrötter. After the 29-year-old got off to a great start from P5 and moved into second position directly behind pole setter Sam Lowes, he fought fiercely to overtake the Briton and take the lead. But the competition is strong and so Augusto Fernandez, Pedro Acosta and Albert Arenas closed the gap after a wobble exit Queckenberg corner and passed the local hero, but Schrötter fought with all means against the scorching heat and the lost position. In fourth place, the Bavarian kept contact with the podium fight and launched a targeted attack shortly before the end, but finally, he was denied this small triumph on home soil by Lowes. The thousands and thousands of fans around the 3.7 km Sachsenring, however, celebrated their hero as if he had won the race.

No less remarkable, however, was the performance of rookie Jeremy Alcoba, who struggled throughout the weekend to build up a good feeling on his Kalex. The Spanish youngster started from the ungrateful last position on the grid and managed to fight his way up to a solid 20th place within a few laps - quite a strong performance considering that the Sachsenring, with its maximum width of 12 m offers very few overtaking opportunities and is physically very demanding due to its ten left-hand and three right-hand corners.

But in just one week's time, the last race before the summer break will take place at the equally legendary TT circuit in Assen, the Netherlands, from 24-26 June 2022, to which Marcel Schrötter will travel in seventh place in the World Championship and 88 points in his pocket

Results

Warm-Up
1. Albert ARENAS/ SPA/ KALEX – 1'24.426
2. Aron CANET/ SPA/ KALEX – 1'24.447 (+0.021)
3. Jake DIXON/ GBR/ KALEX – 1'24.528 (+0.102)
4. Sam LOWES/ GBR/ KALEX – 1'24.652 (+0.226)
5. Pedro ACOSTA/ SPA/ KALEX – 1'24.753 (+0.327)
13. Marcel SCHRÖTTER/ GER/ KALEX – 1'25.285 (+0.859)
18. Jeremy ALCOBA/ SPA/ KALEX –1'25.484 (+1.058)

Race
1. Augusto FERNANDEZ/ SPA/ KALEX
2. Pedro ACOSTA/ SPA/ KALEX – (+7.704)
3. Sam LOWES/ GBR/ KALEX – (+7.844)
4. Marcel SCHRÖTTER/ GER/ KALEX – (+7.959)
20. Jeremy ALCOBA/ SPA/ KALEX – (+47.302)

Championship
1. VIETTI Celestino / ITA / 133
2. OGURA Ai / JPN / 125
3. FERNANDEZ Augusto / SPA / 121
4. CANET Aron / SPA / 116
5. ARBOLINO Tony / ITA / 95
6. ROBERTS Joe / USA / 89
7. SCHRÖTTER Marcel / GER / 88
8. ACOSTA Pedro / SPA / 75
9. CHANTRA Somkiat / THA / 66
10. DIXON Jake/ GBR/ 60
18. ALCOBA Jeremy/ SPA/ 31

Team
1. RED BULL KTM AJO / 196
2. IDEMITSU HONDA TEAM ASIA / 191
3. FLEXBOX HP40 / 174
4. ELF MARC VDS RACING TEAM / 146
5. MOONEY VR46 RACING TEAM / 133
6. LIQUI MOLY INTACT GP / 119
7. GASGAS ASPAR TEAM / 105
8. ITALTRANS RACING TEAM / 99
9. MB CONVEYORS SPEED UP/ 64

Marcel Schrötter

P4 - (+7.959)
Moto2 World Championship 2022 - P7 - 88 Points

"It was an exhausting race, especially mental-wise, in order to not make any mistakes. It was hard to ride, I was constantly in danger of crashing because I had several small slides, which made me lose the connection a bit. I didn't find a right way past, but I tried to stay on bit by bit and I knew that if I didn't make a mistake, I could get closer. It started already within the first corners, the whole bike was sliding front and rear, so I was increasingly struggling with chattering. The front almost folded in on me in several places, it was incredibly difficult to ride. This was certainly one of my most difficult races in terms of riding, plus the heat. In the end, I felt that Acosta was having more trouble following. I then got back to Lowes and was able to make up one place. But unfortunately, my left foot hurt a bit and I made a stupid mistake when changing gears in turn 12. The situation on the front tyre was critical and I didn't want to risk staying on the inside and crashing. But that gave the place back to Lowes and I had no chance to attack after that. At the moment I'm more disappointed about missing the podium than being happy about the fourth place, but that's probably normal. We have to look at the positives. I delivered a good weekend, especially since it's never easy to live up to all the expectations as the only German in the class. I did my best. Nevertheless, the disappointment is deep-seated, because the podium would have been super nice. But we are so close and have to take that into the next race. I have the feeling that we can fight like this over the whole year and then so much is still possible."

Jeremy Alcoba

P20 - (+47.302)
Moto2 World Championship 2022 - P18 - 31 Points

"It was a bit of a strange race as I lost about half a second in each lap but always in just two corners whereas, on the rest of the track, I was much faster. Sadly I was also losing too much grip on the rear so I kept looking at the times and got slower and slower. I pushed hard but then I had to ride more relaxed in order to not overheat the front tyre and after a couple of laps, my lap times improved and even at the end of the race I felt like it was just the start of the race, which made me happy because it seems like we might have found a good bike set-up to work with. Hopefully, this will help us for the next race, to have it easier and be faster. I am happy to go straight to Assen because I want to keep working on the evolution we have now and see what we can do."

Jürgen Lingg

Teammanager

"Of course, we are very happy with Marcel's weekend, because he delivered a strong performance on all three days, even though we struggled briefly in FP3. But we made up for it in qualifying and secured the second row of the grid. That was a good starting position for today's race. The race itself was simply wonderful to watch. You could see from the start, when Marcel came out of the first corner in second place, that he was going to fight and he did, right to the last metre. He had very strong opponents in the direct duel. Those were great fights and you could also notice that everyone was absolutely at the limit. I really liked the fact that Marcel kept his head down. Things can go forward like this. In the end, we were three-tenths off P2 and a podium would have been the crowning glory, but I think we still have every reason to be happy.
It wasn't an easy weekend for Jeremy and it has to be said that his performance in Barcelona was much better in the practice sessions, so we were very optimistic for the Sachsenring. Unfortunately, he had an extremely hard time. In addition, he had a small technical problem, that we noticed relatively late, which of course was not helpful. He should put the weekend behind him as quickly as possible and see that we all do better together in Assen in a week's time."

LIQUI MOLY German GP

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