Xavi Vierge celebrates a fantastic podium in Termas

Xavi Vierge stormed from pole position to an incredible second place in Argentina, while Marcel Schrötter also performed a strong race and finally crossed the finish line in tenth place after a great catch up.

The Argentina Grand Prix could be started as a dry race, after it had rained all night and the warm-up on Sunday morning took place under completely wet conditions.

Xavi Vierge secured his first pole position on Saturday for his 44th Grand Prix start. In the 23-round thriller at the Termas de Rio Hondo on Sunday, the Spaniard fought resolutely for the podium and cheered at the end in second place.

Xavi started well and led the Moto2 field through the first corners when he slipped to fourth place in the following laps. After a touch with Lorenzo Baldassarri, Xavi had to catch a pretty heavy slide and then lost the connection to the front group. But with five laps to go, he was at that point fastest on the track, catching up again and was on podium course. When he moved past Miguel Oliveira to second place, he put the leader Mattia Pasini under pressure and narrowly missed the win.

Thanks to the second podium of his career, Xavi Vierge gained 20 points and rose to the fourth place in the World Championship standings. With another six points from Marcel Schrötter, the Dynavolt Intact GP-Team took over the lead in the Moto2 team classification.

After a week off, the 2018 World Championship will be continued in Austin, Texas from 20 to 22 April.

Xavi Vierge:

“I’m so happy with the pole position and a podium here in Argentina. I think we have done a good job under these difficult conditions. I made a mistake within the first laps. When I wanted to pass Baldassari, I touched him. It was still a bit wet off the line and I lost control of the bike, but fortunately I was able to avoid crashing. But I completely lost the connection to the top group. I tried to be faster and catch up with them. But it was difficult because I always lost in the last two corners compared to them. In the end I did it and it was fun to fight with Mattia until the last round. I tried everything to overtake him, but today it simply was not possible. This second position is very good and I would like to thank my team. Of course, our goal is to achieve such results also in the future and to continue to fight with the best riders.“