Augusto Fernandez closes strong #CatalanGP weekend with 5th place finish, Sam Lowes 7th

It was a momentous day for Elf Marc VDS Racing Team with the squad celebrating its 200th Grand Prix since its inception in 2010. Both Augusto Fernandez and Sam Lowes responded to the occasion by scoring solid points for their world championship challenges and finishing inside the top seven.

Starting at 14.30 local time, the Moto2 field had to deal with the hottest conditions of the day with track temperatures of 44 degrees greeting them for the 22-lap race.

After securing his best qualifying of the year (4th) on Saturday, expectations were high for Augusto after he topped morning warm-up. He started well, but dropped to seventh on lap four.

But the 23-year old then showed excellent consistency as he tried to catch the top five. He was rewarded for his efforts when he caught and passed Bo Bendsneyder for fifth on lap 21.

Thanks to the eleven points scored for fifth, Augusto climbs a place in the World Championship to sit twelfth with 34 points.

Augusto Fernandez
“I’m happy to finish the race with a positive result. Maybe the result is not what we expected after such a strong weekend but I have to be satisfied. I wanted to be stronger but it was clear in the race situation I was missing some confidence after three DNFs in a row and I even felt that on the grid. It was a very hard race for me mentally because I knew the importance of finishing. My focus was just to ride as fast as I could without making any mistakes and that’s exactly what I did. I needed this result and so did the team, but most importantly I recovered a lot of confidence that will help me going to Germany.”

The Englishman endured a tough start to the race, dropping four positions in the first turns to sit twelfth at the end of lap one.

But the 30-year old showed plenty of grit and determination to fight back from there. By lap eight, Lowes was lapping faster than the leaders, and although just 4.8s behind the race winner at the flag, was just unable to take sixth on the final lap.

The nine points gained for seventh means Lowes stays fourth in the World Championship with 75 points, 64 behind leader Remy Gardner.

Sam Lowes
“Yesterday, I felt like I lost a bit of feeling and speed and in this class where everything is so tight, if you are down in 13th at the first corner it makes it difficult. I’m happy with how we recovered and managed the rest of the race because I had similar pace to the top guys and if I had started on the front row, I might have had a chance of the podium. My ideal lap in Q2 would have been the front row and if you start there it is a big help. Nine points is nothing special but certainly better than some of our recent races. We know we’ve thrown away a lot of points, but my speed is there and I’m happy to turn round a difficult weekend with a decent race. It was very important to get some points on the board today and now I’m looking forward to the next double header in Sachsenring and Assen.”