Britain’s Sam Lowes took a lonely second place in today’s Moto2 race at the Phillip Island MotoGP round and has closed in on third place in the championship standings after following Alex Rins home.
Rins was simply untouchable in the race, taking a commanding victory by 6.663s from Lowes to move into second in the Moto2 points table. Forward Racing’s 18-year-old Italian Lorenzo Baldassarri crossed the line in third to record his first GP podium in his 50th Grand Prix start.
From the start it was AGR Team’s Axel Pons who took the lead through Doohan from Lowes, but it didn’t take long for Rins to make his move into the lead. Once the Spaniard got in front he set about opening up a gap over Lowes and Interwetten’s Thomas Luthi who had moved up to third. While this was happening Pons received a ride-through penalty for a jump-start, which ended any hopes he had of fighting for his first race win.
Rins was controlling the race brilliantly at the front, while Lowes and Luthi became embroiled in an excellent tussle for second before the Swiss rider crashed out at MG on lap 17, eventually re-joining to cross the line in 15th.
This left Lowes in a lonely second, but behind him Baldassari was making his move through the field, passing AGR Team’s Jonas Folger for third on lap 18 before Folger was then forced to retire with a flat rear tyre with just four laps to go.
Rins (214pts) rode majestically at the front to take his second Moto2 victory in just his rookie season, and in the process leapfrog the absent Tito Rabat (206pts) into second in the standings. Lowes crossed the line in second to record his fifth podium of 2015 with Baldassarri celebrating his first career GP podium in third.
Idemitsu Team Asia’s Takaaki Nakagami recovered from a terrible start that saw him down in 19th after the first lap to finish in fourth ahead of Xavier Simeon on the Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 Kalex. Simeon’s fifth was the Belgian’s best result since his race win at the Sachsenring.
Rins’ teammate Luis Salom crossed the line in sixth ahead of the 2015 Moto2 World Champion Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) who had a relatively quiet race in seventh.
Mika Kallio , Alex Marquez and Randy Krummenacher completed the top ten.
Rabat pulled out of the weekend’s action after a heavy crash in FP2 aggravated the Spaniard’s broken radius in his left arm and he will also miss the Malaysian GP as he recovers.
