Nicolas Terol capped a spectacular return to form with a dominant ride to his first ever Moto2 victory at the Circuit of the Americas. The Spaniard made short work of polesitter Scott Redding before easing away from a thrilling battle for second, claiming his first win since his 125cc title winning campaign of 2011. Redding tumbled to fifth but that was still good enough to earn the Briton the championship lead after two races.
Victory would have been on Scott’s mind starting from pole position and it all looked so good when he raced into a big lead halfway around the opening lap. A big wheelie exiting the final corner undid that hard work, allowing Takaaki Nakagami and Dominique Aegerter to breeze past and although Redding would quickly dive back past the pair, the race for the podium positions would leave him behind.
Terol would slipstream past Redding’s Marc VDS Kalex on the fourth lap but that move was lost in the drama of Pol Espargaro crashing out of fifth place. While chasing Aegerter and Mika Kallio, the championship leader lost control through the sweeping curves in the first sector and appeared to lose his left boot in the process, leaving him to gingerly limp away with the marshals’ assistance. Nakagami meanwhile wouldn’t get much further with problem at the rear of his Kalex forcing him to retire.
Terol was unaffected and gradually built up a three second lead as Redding came under pressure from Kallio and Aegerter, eventually losing his grip on a rostrum place on lap eleven as Aegerter’s skill under braking came into play at turn one. Scott would also be overtaken by a rapid Esteve Rabat but the Spaniard had his eyes on much more than fourth position and quickly hauled himself into play with Kallio and Aegerter.
The three were locked together as they rounded the last lap and after seeing Rabat breeze past him for third into turn twelve, Aegerter fought straight back at the next corner but not even he could slow the Suter down in time and clipped the rear wheel of Kallio, sending Dominique onto the tarmac run-off and consigning him to fourth. Mika wasn’t out of the woods either and a slip-up at the final bend handed P2 on a plate for Rabat, 3.125s behind the victorious Terol.
Aegerter just about held off Redding for fourth while Johann Zarco pipped Anthony West for sixth. Mattia Pasini put in a tremendous ride to finish eight from 24thon the grid while Alex De Angelis also made up sixteen places to take ninth ahead of 2010 champion Toni Elias.
British rookies Danny Kent and Kyle Smith were unable to convert their excellent grid positions into points with Kent ruing a bad start which dropped him down the order. He eventually recovered to eighteenth while Smith completed his second GP in 21st.
