Xavier Vierge Zafra (born 30 April 1997) is a Spanish motorcycle racer.
Racing career
Born in Barcelona, Vierge finished the 2015 FIM CEV Moto2 European Championship as runner-up. In the same year he made his debut in the Moto2 World Championship as the permanent replacement for Ricard Cardús in the Tech 3 team from the tenth round of the season onwards, without scoring championship points. He was retained by the team for 2016; he scored his first Grand Prix points in Argentina and achieved a best result of 8th in Sepang and at the end of the season he was awarded the Moto2 Rookie of the Year prize.
He stayed with the team for the 2017 season, this time partnered by Australian Remy Gardner. Gardner was forced to miss the Austin round because of a crash in the previous round and was replaced by Julián Simón. At the Italian Grand Prix, Vierge was forced to sit out of the race due to a thoracic trauma following a crash in qualifying. In Assen, Vierge suffered a broken arm in free practice and was again forced to sit out the event. He also had to sit out the next round at Sachsenring and was replaced by Héctor Garzó. At Motegi, Vierge claimed his first podium finish in the championship with a second-place finish.
On 5 August 2017, it was announced that Vierge would join Dynavolt Intact GP for the 2018 season, partnering Marcel Schrötter, who was also his teammate at Tech 3 in the second half of 2015. He took his first pole at Argentina, and finished the race in second place. At Austria, he had a nasty crash in qualifying after a coming together with Steven Odendaal.
On 22 August 2018, it was confirmed that Vierge would sign for EG 0,0 Marc VDS for the 2019 season, partnering Álex Márquez, the younger brother of Marc Márquez. Vierge replaced Joan Mir, who moved up to MotoGP with Suzuki. His place at Dynavolt Intact GP was taken by Thomas Lüthi, who returned to Moto2 after one season in the premier class. In the opening race in Qatar, also the first race with the new Triumph 765cc triple engines, Vierge qualified in second, took the lead at the start, but then fell back to tenth place at the end of the race.
In the next race in Argentina, Vierge took pole position for the second consecutive season, however a problem on the warm-up lap meant he could not start the race. His bad luck continued at Austin, when he was involved in a first-lap crash at turn one along with Fabio Di Giannantonio and Joe Roberts.
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