Moto2: Marquez claims first Moto2 victory

Incidents in the first three rounds meant Marquez had not even scored prior to the French event, and in the early laps today he was at the tail of a lead train also featuring polesitter and points leader Stefan Bradl, Thomas Luthi, Yuki Takahashi, Julian Simon, Aleix Espargaro, Simone Corsi and Bradley Smith.

Marquez worked his way forward until at half-distance he was in the thick of things as Luthi stormed past Bradl to lead at the first corner, and Bradl then fell to fourth behind Takahashi and Marquez while trying to fight back.

With six laps to go, Marquez edged ahead of Luthi to lead at the first corner, but the Interwetten rider was able to hang on alongside and get back ahead into the next left-hander.

Next time around though, Marquez pulled off the move more emphatically, and then started pulling away as the trio behind battled.

His final winning margin was 1.9 seconds over Takahashi, with Bradl getting a podium position in the end, just ahead of Simon and Luthi.

Espargaro faded to a lonely sixth, while Corsi beat Dominique Aegerter, Smith and Alex de Angelis to seventh.

Andrea Iannone, who started the weekend as Bradl's closest championship rival, crashed out in a solo incident on the first lap.

Results - 26 laps:

Pos  Rider                Team/Bike               Time/Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez         Catalunya Suter       43m03.308s
 2.  Yuki Takahashi       Gresini Moriwaki        + 1.982s
 3.  Stefan Bradl         Kiefer Kalex            + 2.237s
 4.  Julian Simon         Aspar Suter             + 2.349s
 5.  Thomas Luthi         Interwetten Suter       + 2.609s
 6.  Aleix Espargaro      Pons Kalex             + 12.295s
 7.  Simone Corsi         Ioda FTR               + 18.739s
 8.  Dominique Aegerter   Technomag-CIP Suter    + 18.918s
 9.  Bradley Smith        Tech 3                 + 20.408s
10.  Alex de Angelis      JIR Motobi             + 20.566s
11.  Jules Cluzel         Forward Suter          + 23.225s
12.  Randy Krummenacher   Kiefer Kalex           + 23.359s
13.  Pol Espargaro        Speed Up FTR           + 23.676s
14.  Michele Pirro        Gresini Moriwaki       + 24.756s
15.  Max Neukirchner      MZ                     + 25.063s
16.  Scott Redding        Marc VDS Suter         + 29.587s
17.  Kenny Noyes          Avintia-Stx FTR        + 32.803s
18.  Xavier Simeon        Tech 3                 + 32.997s
19.  Raffaele de Rosa     G22 Moriwaki           + 33.273s
20.  Yonny Hernandez      Blusens FTR            + 34.837s
21.  Esteve Rabat         Blusens FTR            + 35.765s
22.  Claudio Corti        Italtrans Suter        + 41.502s
23.  Mattia Pasini        Ioda FTR               + 49.702s
24.  Ratthapark Wilairot  Thai Honda FTR         + 50.198s
25.  Anthony West         MZ                     + 50.789s
26.  Kenan Sofuoglu       Technomag-CIP Suter    + 51.362s
27.  Kev Coghlan          Castello FTR           + 51.471s
28.  Valentin Debise      Speed Up FTR         + 1m01.904s
29.  Javier Fores         Aspar Suter          + 1m14.039s
30.  Robertino Pietri     Italtrans Suter      + 1m14.338s
31.  Mashel Al Naimi      QMMF Moriwaki        + 1m28.827s
32.  Alexander Cudlin     QMMF Moriwaki        + 1m29.889s

Retirements:

     Mike di Meglio       Tech 3                   24 laps
     Axel Pons            Pons Kalex               23 laps
     Ricard Cardus        QMMF Moriwaki            19 laps
     Steven Odendaal      MS Suter                 14 laps
     Alex Baldolini       Forward Suter            11 laps
     Mika Kallio          Marc VDS Suter            4 laps
     Andrea Iannone       Speed Master Suter        0 laps
     Santiago Hernandez   SAG FTR                   0 laps