125cc: Di Meglio wins at Barcelona

The Frenchman, who started from the second slot of the grid, fell down to fourth place at the first corner, but by lap six he was in the lead and together with Aprilia's Nicolas Terol he started to open a bit of a gap .

But the two riders battling meant that their rivals were back in the fight for the last three of the 22-lap race. Joining di Meglio and Terol's leading pack were the Derbis of Pol Espargaro and Joan Olive, and the Aprilia of reigning champion Gabor Talmacsi.

But Olive and Terol were soon out of the running. The two Spaniards crashes on the same corner, the former on lap 20 and the latter on the following lap, with both of them retiring on the spot.

Espargaro and Talmacsi were close to di Meglio but could do nothing to stop him in the last lap. The three ended the race with just over three tenths of a second between the winner to third-placed Talmacsi.

Aprilia's Stefan Bradl managed to take fourth place after starting from the 13th spot of the grid. The German took full advantage of a late performance drop by Simone Corsi to overtake him on the last lap and push the Aprilia rider down to fifth.

Scott Redding ended the race in sixth, ahead of Steve Bonsey and Simone Cortese, all of them on Aprilias.

Sergio Gadea managed to salvage a ninth place after having led the race in the first few laps of the race. On lap eight the Aprilia rider dropped from third to 24th place after a run through the gravel trap, with the Spaniard being slightly pushed by Terol who went wide.

Andrea Iannone crashed on lap 19 and was stretched out from the gravel, while Bradley Smith, who had a big crash yesterday, had a difficult race that saw him drop from eighth to 26th by the end of the first lap. The Briton took the chequered flag in 14th place.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Rider             Bike          Time
 1.  Mike Di Meglio    Derbi    41:08.708
 2.  Pol Espargaro     Derbi    +   0.268
 3.  Gabor Talmacsi    Aprilia  +   0.338
 4.  Stefan Bradl      Aprilia  +   8.765
 5.  Simone Corsi      Aprilia  +  10.141
 6.  Scott Redding     Aprilia  +  11.178
 7.  Steve Bonsey      Aprilia  +  13.671
 8.  Sandro Cortese    Aprilia  +  13.755
 9.  Sergio Gadea      Aprilia  +  15.541
10.  Marc Marquez      KTM      +  18.962
11.  Daniel Webb       Aprilia  +  22.653
12.  D.Agerter         Derbi    +  24.928
13.  Tomoyoshi Koyama  KTM      +  25.013
14.  Bradley Smith     Aprilia  +  25.059
15.  R.Krummenacher    KTM      +  25.188
16.  Efren Vazquez     Aprilia  +  25.352
17.  Michael Ranseder  Aprilia  +  25.541
18.  Stefano Bianco    Aprilia  +  31.365
19.  Pere Tutusaus     Aprilia  +  42.899
20.  Jules Cluzel      Loncin   +  43.469
21.  H.van den Berg    Aprilia  +  56.930
22.  Takaaki Nakagami  Aprilia  +1:01.318
23.  R.Lacalendola     Aprilia  +1:02.867
24.  Robert Muresan    Aprilia  +1:17.370
25.  Louis Rossi       Honda    +1:18.790
26.  Ricard Cardus     Derbi    +1:27.350
27.  Daniel Saez       Aprilia  +1:28.736

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Rider             Bike      Laps
     Axel Pons         Aprilia     21
     Nicolas Terol     Aprilia     20
     Raffaele De Rosa  KTM         20
     Joan Olive        Derbi       19
     Andrea Iannone    Aprilia     17
     Robin Lasser      Aprilia     17
     Lorenzo Zanetti   KTM         14
     Alexis Masbou     Loncin      13
     Jordi Dalmau      Honda       11
     Ivan Maestro      Aprilia     10
     Pablo Nieto       KTM          1

FASTEST LAP: Olive, 1:51.271 on lap 10