Thomas Luthi has won today’s Moto2 race at Motegi while Johann Zarco boosted his championship lead as his two main rivals fell.
It was a lights to flag victory for the Swiss Garage Plus Interwetten rider, who got a clean start and led into the first corner. Brit hopeful Sam Lowes had started fourth on the grid, but was run wide and dropped to fifth.
Zarco’s first championship rival Alex Rins didn’t manage to even get a lap under his belt, the injured Spaniard slipping off his Paginas Amarillas HP 40 machine at Turn Three, having started down in 22nd, ending his race and potentially his championship.
Lowes was on a charge, and as the pack began the second lap, the Brit and Zarco were locked in a scrap for third, swapping places several times. But the Federal Oil Gresini Moto 2 pilot had the edge, and made it past the championship leader who then lost another spot to Takaaki Nakagami.
However, moments later, Lowes’ race ended unceremoniously in the gravel trap as he too slid off all on his own at Turn 10, crashing out and effectively wrecking any championship hopes he may have had going into the weekend.
With Luthi still out in front ahead of Ajo Motorsport rider Zarco and Franco Morbidelli third, the pack settled down and into the 23-lap race with very little changing in the top 10 for several laps.
On Lap Eight, a charging Alex Marquez made a move on AGR Team’s Marcel Schrotter into seventh. But before he’d had a lot of time to think about it he too crashed out, the Estrella Galicia 0.0 Marc VDS rider ending his day in the gravel
By the half way point, Luthi had built what seemed like a comfortable lead as Morbidelli seemed to be dropping back towards Nakagami.
Sandro Cortese was on the move, passing Axel Pons to move up to fifth. Just behind, Lorenzo Baldassarri became the next victim of Turn 10 as he too crashed out.
A lap later, a mistake by Nakagami in Turn Three was all Zarco needed to capitalise and snatch back third, as Axel Pons, who had been running sixth, became the next addition to the Turn 10 club.
Zarco was soon past Morbidelli and set off after leader Luthi, who was 1.7s further up the road. He spent the rest of the race trying to catch the leader, bringing down the gap slowly.
Behind, Nakagami was all over the back of Morbidelli and with a podium in sight wasn’t about to give up. However, despite moving ahead on the final lap, he was powerless to stop the Italian coming back and taking back the place.
Up front, Zarco had to settle for second as a triumphant Luthi took the win. Morbidelli had done enough to keep Nakagami behind him and took third.
Nakagami was fourth ahead of Dynavolt Intact GP rider Cortese with Speed Up Racing’s Simone Corsi sixth. Seventh went to Mattia Pasini with Julian Simon eight, Schrotter ninth and Xavier Simeon 10th.
The result means Zarco has now stretched his championship to 21 points over Rins, who did manage to re-join but finished out of the points in 20th.
Britain’s other hope, Danny Kent, had a disappointing race dogged by mechanical problems which forced him to retire at the end of the ninth lap.
