Sam Lowes’ hopes of of an historic home Moto2 win at the Silverstone MotoGP round were dashed when championship rival Johann Zarco nerfed him off at Brooklands as the pair fought for second place behind eventual winner Thomas Luthi.
Lowes had passed the reigning champion at the Loop with four laps to go and looked intent on reeling in Luthi for the win but Zarco had other ideas and tried to sneak up the inside of Lowes’ Gresini Kalex. Zarco stayed on and finished in sixth place but Lowes had to remount and ended in 22nd. However, Zarco was handed a 30-second penalty by race direction for the move as he crossed the line, so he finished in 22nd, with Lowes promoted one place.
Jonas Folger made a fast get-away to lead into the first corner ahead of pole-starter Lowes while in mid-pack Isaac Vinales crashed spectacularly out of the opening lap during which Lowes had rammed down the power to nose ahead of Folger with Zarco running third from Hafizh Syahrin and Alex Marquez.
Lowes had the edge, though by only a tenth of a second, while Zarco got the better of Folger to go second with Marquez closing in on Syahrin as Danny Kent ran twelfth with title contender Alex Rins a distant twentieth and only a couple of places up on Simone Cortese who had started from the back f the pack having experienced a machine issue on the grid.
Out front Lowes was riding hard, extending to a third of a second his advantage but Zarco was strong and a constant menace while Franco Morbidelli slip-stream into third, with the fastest lap of the race so far, at the expense of Marquez, Folger and Syahrin with Thomas Luthi seventh from Takaaki Nakagami.
Marquez slid out on the fourth lap but picked himself up to rejoin in last place as Lowes continued to run out front but always under intense pressure from Zarco who was often only a couple of machine lengths down. Morbidelli was third, just, from Folger, Syahrin and Luthi while Kent had been pushed back into sixteenth, just ahead of Rins.
Luthi pinched third from Morbidelli and Syahrin edged in front of Folger with Nakagami seventh but Kent as pushed further back as both Rins and Julian Simon took him but then out front it was all change as Lowes ran marginally off line and that cost him the lead, dropping him to fourth. Luthi had the lead now with ten laps to go from Zarco and Morbidelli as Lowes began his fight-back.
Lowes was giving everything and next time around he found a way through Morbidelli and then held off the fierce challenges of the Italian as he set about chasing down Zarco. There was little more than a third of a second between them as the slugged it out while Rins was fighting hard to be running in tenth place.
It was frantic at the front, with only half a second between the leading trio and Lowes was consistently lapping the fastest of them as he inched closer to second placed Zarco but there was no way through and Lowes ran wide again as he tried to line-up the Frenchman.
Luthi, the winner of the opening round in Qatar, was intent on putting a lean spell behind him and then with four laps remaining after Lowes had grabbed second place from Zarco, the series leader bit back immediately, forcing his way through, with contact being made and Lowes tipped off. Race officials immediately decided to investigate the incident.
Zarco lost ground, slipping back into sixth, with Luthi leading from Nakagami, Morbidelli, Syahrin and Folger with Rins now ninth. Luthi had the race under control, going into the last lap with a lead of 0.791secs though behind him the fight for second place was intensifying and Morbidelli snatched it from Nakagami with Syahrin fourth from Folger and Zarco, Lorenzo Baldassarri and Rins with Kent fifteenth. Zarco was given a 30 seconds penalty for irresponsible riding and that dropped him to twenty-second place, just adrift of Lowes who had rejoined the action.
The big winner out of the Lowes/Zarco interface was injured Alex Rins. Riding with a broken collarbone, Rins slowly made his way through the field from his lowly qualifying spot and picked up enough points to bring him to only ten behind Zarco in the title chase.