Moto2: Bautista takes commanding win

The race was deemed wet after a little bit of rain hit the track shortly before the start, forcing a further five-minute delay on top of a re-scheduling due to the 125cc race running late. Despite that, the riders chose to take the start with dry-weather tyres.

Bautista, who made a bad start from pole position and dropped down to ninth position, was the only rider able to close an early gap opened early in the race by the Swiss.

The quickest off the line and leading at the first corner was third-on-the-grid Marco Simoncelli, but an overtaking move by Aprilia's Luthi, who started sixth, forced the Gilera rider to close the gas and lose several positions, eventually finding himself in 12th by the end of lap one.

Meanwhile, Luthi started opening a gap over second-placed Alex Debon. By the end of lap six Bautista had recovered lots of positions and had just managed to overtake his compatriot to slot into second, albeit over three seconds behind Luthi.

That gap was closed six laps later, and on lap 13th the two riders exchanged position, while the rest of the pack, headed by Debon, Hector Barbera and an impressive Simoncelli, was eight seconds behind the leading duo.

Luthi took the lead back from Bautista for three laps after more rain briefly hit the track around lap 15, but Bautista had none of it and after taking first place back on lap 19 he opened a gap that by the end of the 24-lap race was almost five seconds.

Simoncelli made a fine recovery from his first-lap problems and almost managed to threaten Luthi's second place, eventually finishing 1.4 seconds behind. Simoncelli is now just one point away from KTM's Mika Kallio at the top of the standings, with the latter classifying only seventh.

Three seconds behind Simoncelli, Debon managed to beat Barbera for fourth place by less than half a tenth, after the two Aprilia riders had a hard battle throughout the race.

On lap 14 Barbera went wide while overtaking Debon, cut through a turn and almost crashed into Kallio upon rejoining the track. That overtaking attempt at that same corner happened again on the last lap and had the same outcome, minus the near-miss.

KTM's Hiroshi Aoyoma took sixth position away from teammate Kallio with less than three laps of the race remaining.

Russel Gomez had a crash on lap one, while Mattia Pasini had another on lap eleventh while he was eighth.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Rider              Bike      Time
 1.  Alvaro Bautista    Aprilia   40:54.117   
 2.  Thomas Luthi       Aprilia   +   4.597
 3.  Marco Simoncelli   Gilera    +   6.003
 4.  Alex Debon         Aprilia   +   9.034
 5.  Hector Barbera     Aprilia   +   9.079
 6.  Hiroshi Aoyama     KTM       +  11.515
 7.  Mika Kallio        KTM       +  12.874
 8.  Yuki Takahashi     Honda     +  13.622
 9.  R.Locatelli        Gilera    +  21.168
10.  Julian Simon       KTM       +  28.789
11.  Hector Faubel      Aprilia   +  37.607
12.  R.Wilairot         Honda     +  37.741
13.  Fabrizio Lai       Gilera    +  38.729
14.  Alex Baldolini     Aprilia   +  39.165
15.  Lukas Pesek        Aprilia   +  43.037
16.  Eugene Laverty     Aprilia   +  54.171
17.  Aleix Espargaro    Aprilia   +  54.334
18.  Frederik Watz      Aprilia   +1:24.430
19.  D.T.Pradita        Yamaha    +   1 Lap
20.  Imre Toth          Aprilia   +   1 Lap

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Rider              Bike      On lap
     Manuel Poggiali    Gilera       18
     Mattia Pasini      Aprilia      12
     Russell Gomez      Aprilia       1
     Karel Abraham      Aprilia     DNS

FASTEST LAP: Bautista, 1:40.340 on lap 12