Moto2 Jerez
An eventful Moto2 race saw Toni Elías take his first motorcycle racing Grand Prix victory since his win in Estoril back in 2006 after a shortened 17-lap contest following a pile-up on the second lap of the original race.
A coming together between Simone Corsi and Shoya Tomizawa at the Dry Sack corner saw the Japanese rider slide out and deposit fuel on the track surface, which brought down a number of following riders. The race was red flagged and then restarted 30 minutes later, after some frantic work in pit lane to repair the bikes that had been involved in the crash.
With 42 riders fighting for position and all lapping within one second of each other more crashes were inevitable, with Karel Abraham, Andrea Iannone and Joan Olivè all early fallers.
Kenny Noyes was the first rider to get to the front and then try to gap the pursuing pack but, try as he might, the American simply couldn’t escape from the clutches of Toni Elias, Thomas Lüthi and championship leader, Tomizawa. With six laps to go, nine riders were still in with a chance of victory.
Overtaking moves were not in short supply as the frontrunners constantly pushed one another, and as the final laps approached Elias, Tomizawa, Lüthi and Takahashi weree nose to tail.
To the delight of the Spanish crowd it was Elías who pulled off a double overtake to take the chequered flag, 0.190s ahead of Tomizawa who maintains his Championship lead with his podium finish. Lüthi, at a further seven-thousandths behind completed the top three in a fantastic grandstand finish, as he moved into third place in the overall standings.
Takahashi and Corsi both finished inside the top five. Sergio Gadea followed Corsi home, meaning the top six riders were all former Grand Prix winners. Noyes, Julián Simón (Mapfre Aspar), Gabor Talmacsi (Fimmco Speed Up), and Yonny Hernández (Blusens-STX) completing the top ten.
