Mika Kallio was the saviour for Marc VDS Racing, taking his first ever Moto2 victory on a day when teammate Scott Redding had to battle for every last position. The championship leader fought hard to finish eighth but Pol Espargaro’s failure to do better than fourth, coupled with Kallio’s win, means Redding still heads to Silverstone with a healthy advantage over his title rival.
It was a race which saw two fascinating stories develop as Kallio, Takaaki Nakagami and Thomas Luthi fought it out for their first victory of the year, in fact Luthi was the only rider of the three to have won at all in Moto2, while Redding was on a collision course with Espargaro as he tried to make progress from his lowly grid position.
Espargaro was lying fifth approaching the halfway point behind Nicolas Terol but Redding had battled his way past a number of tricky opponents including Pons rider Esteve Rabat to reach sixth place. On lap nine, the gloves were well and truly off as Redding barged his way through at turn seven and when Espargaro launched a counter attack six corners later, the door was slammed firmly shut in his face.
Things continued to look up for Marc VDS as Kallio took over the lead but Redding’s charge started to fade as the enormous effort to make up lost ground took its toll. Two laps after his first failed attempt, Espargaro regained fifth and brought Johann Zarco through with him while a recovering Rabat soon relegated Redding to eighth, a position he would be nailed in until the finish.
Back at the front, Kallio was holding on to the lead until Luthi dived past five laps from home but with the incentive of a maiden win spurring them on, both Kallio and Nakagami pushed past the Swiss rider on lap eighteen. Mika’s move at turn seven would prove to be the decisive one as he eased to victory by half a second from Nakagami with Luthi forced to settle for third.
Pol Espargaro eventually salvaged fourth, securing two extra points by passing Terol on the last lap, while Zarco also got one over on his former 125cc rival to snatch fifth. Rabat took seventh ahead of Redding while Simone Corsi beat Jordi Torres in a photo finish for ninth. Danny Kent’s excellent weekend was capped off with a deserved points finish as the Tech 3 rider battled to twelfth.
The race also saw a terrifying incident as Mike Di Meglio crashed at turn three, bringing down Marcel Schrotter and the Frenchman was subsequently struck by the blameless Alberto Moncayo. Di Meglio was later diagnosed with a compound fracture to his coccyx but given the nature of the accident, he appeared to get off lightly.