Moto2: Aoyama takes commanding win

The Japanese rider had a perfect race that saw him take the lead within the first lap, open a large gap over the rest of the field despite the changing track conditions causing degradation to the wet tyres everyone was on, then manage his lead in the closing laps.

The Scot Honda rider started from third on the grid and was fourth at the first corner, but he quickly overtook rivals Marco Simoncelli, Alex Debon and polesitter Hector Barbera to lead by the start of lap 2.

In the first eight laps his lead had opened to six seconds already, and the man following him was Alvaro Bautista, who made a great recovery from eighth at the end of lap 1.

With 12 laps remaining in the 27-lap race, the Aspar Aprilia rider began to close the distance to the race leader, and a surprise finish still looked possible with three laps to go, when the two at the front were separated by little over two seconds.

But that's when Bautista gave up with his pursuit, taking the chequered flag 5.7 seconds behind Aoyama.

The last podium place went to Mattia Pasini, who fought with Alex Debon for most of the race. The Italian had been following the Spaniard until he managed to overtake him on lap 17. But within a couple of corners he lost the front of his Toth-entered Aprilia and went crashing, handing third place back to the Blusens Aprilia rival.

Pasini got back on his bike and rejoined the race without losing anymore places thanks to a large gap he had over Simoncelli. But as soon as Pasini put his wheels back on the track, Debon also crashed, allowing Pasini to take third back before slotting back in fourth.

At that point, however, Simoncelli was all over Debon and passed him on lap 18, before going in hot pursuit of Pasini. But the reigning world champion was never able to fully close the gap, and in the end he had to be content with fourth, six tenths behind his fellow countryman.

Mike di Meglio made a strong recovery throughout the race to finish fifth ahead of Debon, after the Aspar Aprilia rider had a bad start that saw him fall outside the top ten for the first handful of laps.

Barbera had a disappointing race that saw him fall constantly back after starting from pole. The Pepe Aprilia rider in the end classified eighth behind Scot Honda's Raffaele de Rosa.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Rider             Bike     Time
 1.  Hiroshi Aoyama    Honda    45m17.516s   
 2.  Alvaro Bautista   Aprilia  +   5.723s
 3.  Mattia Pasini     Aprilia  +  36.161s
 4.  Marco Simoncelli  Gilera   +  36.776s
 5.  Mike Di Meglio    Aprilia  +  41.418s
 6.  Alex Debon        Aprilia  +  41.938s
 7.  Raffaele De Rosa  Honda    +  57.483s
 8.  Hector Barbera    Aprilia  +  59.975s
 9.  Thomas Luthi      Aprilia  +1m14.852s
10.  Hector Faubel     Honda    +1m16.927s
11.  Jules Cluzel      Aprilia  +1m21.356s
12.  Lukas Pesek       Aprilia  +1m21.665s
13.  R.Locatelli       Gilera   +1m29.576s
14.  Karel Abraham     Aprilia  + 1 Lap  
15.  Shoya Tomizawa    Honda    + 1 Lap  
16.  Alex Baldolini    Aprilia  + 1 Lap  
17.  Imre Toth         Aprilia  + 1 Lap  
18.  Luke Mossey       Aprilia  + 1 Lap  
19.  Valentin Debise   Honda    + 2 Laps 
20.  Axel Pons         Aprilia  + 2 Laps 
21.  Aitor Rodriguez   Aprilia  + 2 Laps 
22.  Bastien Chesaux   Honda    + 2 Laps 
23.  Toby Markham      Aprilia  + 4 Laps 

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Rider             Bike     On lap
     R.Wilairot        Honda      18
     Ralf Waldmann     Aprilia     5
     Balazs Nemeth     Aprilia     0

FASTEST LAP: Baldolini, 1m34.963s on lap 22