Toni Eliás’ hard work in the Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland nearly seemed unnoticed as the battles became fiery at the front of the race, however by the finish of the thirty laps Eliás had performed as remarkable as anything else that was happening in fighting for victory.

The Spaniard smashed out in qualifying for the Sachsenring race, because of this he wasn't able to clock a time that would allow anything higher than the last spot on the grid. With a drier track on Sunday, he was fortunate to overtake nine riders in the beginning ten laps to be able to switch his situation around.

”I was expecting a fight for a top ten finish, to be honest,” explains the Honda Gresini rider.  He ended up coming through the ground for sixth place. “I ended up doing much better than I could have imagined!”

Also adding to the steep and tricky levels of the race was that he been sick before to the race, it was a nervous time for the Spanish champion.

“Once I caught up with Marco I found it difficult to get past him and my stomach pains started,” he states. “I thought, ‘please no, not now!’ I fought through the pain and over the last few laps we had a great battle, which I was able to win. I want to thank the team because they’ve been doing a great job and we are starting to see the fruit of our hard work.”

At present Elías is twelfth in the overall class, even on points with colleague Alex de Angelis.