Misano Moto2: Marc Marquez on pole as Pol Espargaro crashes

Title rival Pol Espargaro, on pole in the previous three consecutive races, was in contention but with five minutes to go dropped the front of his Pons Kalex at Turn 15.

The Spaniard did at least have the comfort of watching the rest of the field fail to beat his benchmark, allowing him to hang on to second.

In his absence however no one was seriously able to challenge Marquez in the final minutes. The Monlau Suter rider currently leads the championship by 48 points heading into the final six races.

With Espargaro unable to improve and Marquez not needing to, the final minutes centred around the battle for third, eventually decided in favour of Marc VDS's Scott Redding.

Takaaki Nakagami and Andrea Iannone were also in the mix, but eventually had to settle for fourth and fifth respectively.

It is only the second time all year Nakagami (Italtrans Kalex) has cracked the top four.

Iannone, set to step up into Ducati's satellite MotoGP team in 2013, finished just over one quarter of a second down on Marquez.

Sixth went to Thomas Luthi (Paddock Suter), who narrowly edged out Esteve Rabat (Pons Kalex), Ratthapark Wilairot (Gresini Suter) and Mika Kallio (Marc VDS Kalex).

Pos  Rider                 Team/Bike              Time       Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez          Monlau Suter           1m38.242s
 2.  Pol Espargaro         Pons Kalex             1m38.286s  + 0.044s
 3.  Scott Redding         Marc VDS Kalex         1m38.339s  + 0.097s
 4.  Takaaki Nakagami      Italtrans Kalex        1m38.369s  + 0.127s
 5.  Andrea Iannone        Speed Master Speed Up  1m38.503s  + 0.261s
 6.  Thomas Luthi          Paddock Suter          1m38.617s  + 0.375s
 7.  Esteve Rabat          Pons Kalex             1m38.699s  + 0.457s
 8.  Ratthapark Wilairot   Gresini Suter          1m38.793s  + 0.551s
 9.  Mika Kallio           Marc VDS Kalex         1m38.794s  + 0.552s
10.  Bradley Smith         Tech 3                 1m38.849s  + 0.607s
11.  Yuki Takahashi        Forward FTR            1m38.866s  + 0.624s
12.  Julian Simon          Avintia Suter          1m38.919s  + 0.677s
13.  Simone Corsi          Ioda FTR               1m39.043s  + 0.801s
14.  Xavier Simeon         Tech 3                 1m39.074s  + 0.832s
15.  Johann Zarco          JIR Motobi             1m39.114s  + 0.872s
16.  Claudio Corti         Italtrans Kalex        1m39.122s  + 0.880s
17.  Dominique Aegerter    Technomag-CIP Suter    1m39.253s  + 1.011s
18.  Jordi Torres          Aspar Suter            1m39.277s  + 1.035s
19.  Randy Krummenacher    Switzerland Kalex      1m39.417s  + 1.175s
20.  Mike di Meglio        Kiefer Kalex           1m39.420s  + 1.178s
21.  Alex de Angelis       Forward FTR            1m39.470s  + 1.228s
22.  Axel Pons             Pons Kalex             1m39.486s  + 1.244s
23.  Gino Rea              Gresini Suter          1m39.603s  + 1.361s
24.  Nicolas Terol         Aspar Suter            1m39.804s  + 1.562s
25.  Anthony West          QMMF Speed Up          1m40.125s  + 1.883s
26.  Tomoyoshi Koyama      Technomag-CIP Suter    1m40.130s  + 1.888s
27.  Alessandro Andreozzi  Speed Master Speed Up  1m40.471s  + 2.229s
28.  Steven Odendaal       Arguinano AJR          1m41.156s  + 2.914s
29.  Marcel Schrotter      SAG Bimota             1m41.222s  + 2.980s
30.  Marco Colandrea       SAG FTR                1m41.951s  + 3.709s
31.  Elena Rosell          QMMF Speed Up          1m42.102s  + 3.860s