Marc VDS rider Alex Marquez absolutely crushed the Moto2 field to win his fourth race in the last five, to take control of the World Championship at the Sachsenring.

Starting from pole, Marquez didn’t enjoy the best of starts, leaving him down to fifth after the opening lap with Luca Marini flying off the line. However, this year is a different Marquez. Undeterred and minimising mistakes, the Spaniard cut through, picking his way past Marcel Schrotter, Iker Lecuona and Marini to take the lead.

After some brief pressure from Lecuona, Marquez put the hammer down, pulling away from the field and eventually winning from Brad Binder. In winning the race and Tom Luthi failing to finish on the podium, Marquez also took the lead of the World Championship from Luthi, leading the World Championship into the summer break by eight points.

Brad Binder wasted little time in cutting through from seventeenth to second, however the KTM man couldn’t keep as tight a line as Marquez and didn’t have the pace to go with the Marc VDS man, instead finding himself in a three way fight for the lesser podium spots, with Schrotter and Lecuona.

With three laps to go, Binder put a few bike lengths into Schrotter and Lecuona to secure second place. Schrotter, sat in third, managed to hold off Lecuona on the final lap, before the Spaniard asked too much of his KTM, losing it on the final corner of the race.

Fabio Di Giannantonio inherited fourth place with the Lecuona mistake, with Luthi moving into fifth. It was a case of damage limitation for the Swiss rider, who had to go through the penalty loop midway through the race for being a little too aggressive whilst overtaking Xavi Vierge, resulting with the Spaniard ending up in the gravel.

Augusto Fernandez got the better of his team-mate, Lorenzo Baldassarri, for sixth place, with Jorge Navarro, Jorge Martin and Luca Marini rounding out the top ten.

Sam Lowes was eleventh, getting the better of SAG duo Tetsuta Nagashima and Remy Gardener, with Enea Bastianini and Andrea Locatelli completing the point scorers.