Bancaja Aprilia's Bradley Smith has taken his second MotoGP 125cc race of the season at Mugello this morning, holding off Nicolas Terol and team-mate Julian Simon to cross the line first and take the championship lead.
Smith set pole yesterday but got an appalling start, finding himself shuffled down to sixth in the first turn as Blusens Aprilia's Scott Redding, who was next to Smith on the front row, went into turn one second behind Simon.
As Smith slowly worked his way back through the pack, a fast-starting Danny Webb followed him as they made the leading group into a five-bike dice for the lead, with Andrea Iannone in the lead.
On lap four, Iannone led from Terol with Redding fourth, Webb fifth and Smith sixth and a lap later, Smith used the massive tow along the start/finish straight to take second, behind Simon.
With 14 laps to go, Smith hit the front and immediately pulled a one second gap which he increased by half a second on the next lap as Iannone retired with mechanical problems.
Simon and Terol tried to go with the Oxfordshire teenager and put a gap on the scrap for fourth which still included Redding and Webb until the latter fell foul of Mugello's bumps, crashing out with 12 laps to go.
Simon and Terol managed to close the gap back up to Smith and they lapped in formation until Smith and Terol upped the pace by half a second and Simon had no answer. Redding survived a near-crash in the final corner on the last lap to take seventh while Sandro Cortese crashed in sympathy.
