CaixiaRepsol Moto2 rider Marc Marquez has overhauled season-long championship leader Stefan Bradl in the championship table after bagging second place in today's race at the Motegi MotoGP round as the Viessman Kiefer man could only finish fourth.
Bradl has spent the whole year at the top of the table after running away with early races but the reigning Spaniard has slowly worn him down, hauling in a 76 point advantange before today's encounter in Japan. Marquez now leads by one point and his reward will be a test on the 1000cc RC213V tomorrow.
"It was a difficult race. Maybe here we did not find the perfect setup, but the team did a very good job, improving during the weekend. Today Iannone was a bit faster and I tried to do my best to win the race, but it is true that in the last laps I thought a bit more about the Championship and I saw on the board ten laps before the end that they said “P2 OK", Today it was a tough race for us, but to finish in second place when we do not have a perfect setup is a very good result," said Marquez.
Speed Master rider Andrea Iannone was victorious in the race after handing the lead to Marquez with only a couple of laps left to run. He had a problem going under the oval when his bike cut out for no apparent reason and the small Spaniard took the lead but Iannone re-grouped and re-passed Marquez, which he kept to the line.
Swiss racer Thomas Luthi compounded Bradl's misery by nicking the final podium spot and the German also had to contend with last-lap charges from Simone Corsi and veteran Alex de Angelis. Britain's Bradley Smith couldn't convert his fourth place into a podium, eventually slipping to seventh and four seconds behind de Angelis while Scott Redding finished in 20th on his MarcVDS Suter.
