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Marc Marquez wins Moto2 comeback race in Qatar

Marc Marquez took victory on his return to Moto2 after last year's injury, winning a spectacular race in Qatar

The season-opener was action-packed from the outset, with a huge train of bikes fighting for the lead throughout, before a final-lap showdown between Marquez, Thomas Luthi and Andrea Iannone.

Poleman Luthi had led at first, before being attacked by Pol Espargaro starting lap two. Both ran a little wide, allowing Marquez to slip through into the lead, as Luthi started a temporary slump down the order.

Espargaro, Iannone and Marquez then swapped the lead for a while, although the latter pair made life harder for themselves by running wide at Turn 1 on consecutive laps around half-distance and losing several places.

That gave Espargaro another shot at leading, until Luthi worked his way back to the front on lap 14.

Marquez was soon back on Luthi's tail, with Iannone right behind them. It seemed as though Marquez was biding his time, and sure enough he attacked starting the final lap, edging Luthi onto the kerb and sending him very wide.

Iannone capitalised and briefly claimed the lead, but Marquez was able to slipstream back past on the run to the finish line, claiming victory in his comeback race by just 0.061 seconds.

Espargaro beat Esteve Rabat to the final podium position, with Luthi only able to salvage fifth.

Scott Redding battled through to sixth, just ahead of Mike di Meglio and Simone Corsi.

Results - 20 laps:

Pos  Rider                  Team/Bike                 Time/Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez           Monlau Suter            40m34.225s
 2.  Andrea Iannone         Speed Master Speed Up     + 0.061s
 3.  Pol Espargaro          Pons Kalex                + 1.412s
 4.  Esteve Rabat           Pons Kalex                + 1.639s
 5.  Thomas Luthi           Interwetten Suter         + 3.981s
 6.  Scott Redding          Marc VDS Kalex            + 6.768s
 7.  Mike di Meglio         Speed Master Speed Up     + 6.794s
 8.  Simone Corsi           Ioda FTR                  + 6.986s
 9.  Bradley Smith          Tech 3                   + 10.828s
10.  Mika Kallio            Marc VDS Kalex           + 11.379s
11.  Randy Krummenacher     Switzerland Kalex        + 12.750s
12.  Johann Zarco           JIR Motobi               + 14.121s
13.  Toni Elias             Aspar Suter              + 17.634s
14.  Takaaki Nakagami       Italtrans Kalex          + 17.875s
15.  Julian Simon           Avintia FTR              + 17.894s
16.  Claudio Corti          Italtrans Kalex          + 19.014s
17.  Xavier Simeon          Tech 3                   + 19.114s
18.  Dominique Aegerter     Technomag-CIP Suter      + 28.802s
19.  Yuki Takahashi         Forward Suter            + 36.598s
20.  Angel Rodriguez        SAG FTR                  + 36.738s
21.  Ratthapark Wilairot    Gresini Moriwaki         + 37.147s
22.  Axel Pons              Pons Kalex               + 37.443s
23.  Nicolas Terol          Aspar Suter              + 39.523s
24.  Ricard Cardus          Arguinano AJR            + 45.260s
25.  Anthony West           QMMF Moriwaki            + 53.786s
26.  Gino Rea               Gresini Moriwaki         + 54.008s
27.  Marco Colandrea        SAG FTR                + 1m19.054s
28.  Alexander Lundh        MZ FTR                 + 1m19.071s
29.  Elena Rosell           QMMF Moriwaki          + 1m35.150s
30.  Max Neukirchner        Kiefer Kalex               + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Alex de Angelis        Forward Suter              18 laps
     Nasser Hasan Al Malki  QMMF Moriwaki              10 laps
     Roberto Rolfo          Technomag-CIP Suter         3 laps

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