British Grand Prix Silverstone Moto2 Race: Álex Márquez crashes, second victory for Augusto Fernandez

It was under magnificent sunshine that the protagonists of this British Grand Prix in the Moto2 category took their places on the starting grid. The leader of the provisional World Championship classification Álex Márquez occupied pole position, with Jorge Navarro and Augusto Fernández alongside him. Remy Fernandez was on the second row of the starting grid with Xavi Virginie and Luca Marini. On the third row were Tetsuta Nagashima, Brad Binder and Sam Lowes, then on the fourth Fabio di Giannantonio, Nicolò Bulega, and the second in the provisional World Championship ranking Tom Lüthi.

Silverstone Moto2™	2018	2019
FP1	2'08.385 Marcel Schrötter	2'05.777 Fabio di Giannantonio
FP2	2'10.452 Alex Marquez	2'04.993 Jorge Navarro
FP3	2'08.182 Marcel Schrötter	2'04.648 Jorge Navarro
Q1	XXX	2'05.119 Marcel Schrötter
Q2	2'08.153 Francesco Bagnaia	2'04.374 Alex Marquez
warm up	2'22.814 Marcel Schrötter	2'04.965 Jorge Navarro
Course	XXX	Fernandez, Navarro, Binder
All time lap record	2'04.374 Alex Márquez (2019)	2'04.374 Alex Márquez (2019)

It was interesting to note that the gap between the top two – Álex Márquez and Jorge Navarro – was only 0.043 during qualifying. Kalex dominated with Márquez, followed very closely by Navarro's Speed ​​Up. KTM was in eighth position with Brad Binder. At the time of departure, in front of a considerable crowd, the weather was very favorable with 31° for the air temperature and 45° for that of the new asphalt.

The fastest to start at the lights was Álex Márquez ahead of Jorge Navarro, Remy Gardner, Xavi Virginie, Luca Marini and Augusto Fernández. Virgo overtook Gardner for third position.

Márquez, Navarro and Virginie stood out slightly in front of the chasing pack led by Gardner, while Brad Binder had moved up to fifth place ahead of Fernández and di Giannantonio.

Márquez and Navarro opened up a gap of 0.9 over Virginie, Gardner, di Giannantonio, Binder and Fernández.

Márquez and Navarro's advantage increased to 1.5 over Gardner who had overtaken Virgo for third place. Then Virgo lost two more places, passed by Binder and Fernández.

Navarro briefly took first place, but Márquez overtook him shortly after. Gardner was at 1.6, ahead of Binder and Fernández. Tm Lüthi, second in the provisional World Championship ranking, was then only in ninth position at 4.7.

Márquez continued to dominate, 0.3 ahead of Navarro and 2.1 ahead of Gardner, Binder and Fernández. Nagashima, sixth at 3.9, seemed to have lost any chance of getting on the podium regularly.

Binder made a superb attack on Gardner and took the third step of the podium from him.

Suddenly the leader of the race and the Championship Álex Márquez fell without seriousness in Turn 16! Navarro was therefore the sole leader with a 1.7 lead over Binder, Fernández and Gardner.

Navarro saw his lead shrink to 1.4 over Binder, Fernández and Gardner. The race was far from over, a priori. Nagashima fifth was 2.7 ahead of di Giannantonio at 4.2.

Binder continued to put pressure on and came back to within 0.9 of Navarro, taking Fernández with him. Gardner fourth had a little difficulty following, 2.0 with 10 laps to go to the checkered flag.

Bradley Smith fell without seriousness in Turn 17. Navarro managed to stabilize his advantage at 0.8, but Binder continued to attack and got back to 0.5 with Fernández. Gardner fourth was 2.1 just ahead of Nagashima. Di Giannantonio sixth at 5.1 preceded Lüthi well recovered.

With 7 laps to go, the junction was made between Navarro and his Speed ​​Up, Binder and his KTM, and Fernández and his Kalex. Three manufacturers in the first three places.

Binder took first position by overtaking Navarro. The South African had an excellent pace that Navarro and Fernández struggled to keep up with.

A little further on, Lorenzo Baldassarri took seventh place from Tom Lüthi, which was important in the Championship.

Navarro and Fernández resisted well and kept in contact with Binder. Gardner fourth was 2.1 ahead of Nagashima at 2.4 and di Giannantonio at 5.9.

With 4 laps remaining, Navarro regained first place, ahead of Binder and Fernandez. Binder's rear tire appeared to be showing signs of wear. Fernandez took the opportunity to overtake the KTM rider.

Baldassarri overtook di Giannantonio for sixth position. Lüthi was eighth.

Behind Navarro, Fernández and Binder, Gardner closed to 0.9 behind the leader, with a good chance of getting on the podium. Sam Lowes fell without gravity.

On the last lap, Navarro and Fernández fought for victory. Finally Augusto Fernández won his second Grand Prix (after Assen) ahead of Navarro, Binder and Gardner. Lüthi finished eighth.

Race ranking:

Provisional ranking of the World Championship:

Photos © motogp.com / Dorna