125cc: Marquez fights for fifth straight win

The pair had battled tooth-and-nail at the front from lap four, when they passed early (wet tyre-shod) early leaders Jonas Folger and Marcel Schrotter when the track was still mostly damp.

Swapping the lead virtually every lap from that point onwards, and pushing hard as they explored the limits of the rumble strip's adhesion at several points around the circuit, it remained unclear which rider ultimately held a pace advantage heading in to the final stages.

Though it seemed as if Marquez's was the quicker Derbi in the final third of the lap and Espargaro always looked slightly more on the edge at that point on the circuit.

And so it proved when Espargaro went an inch too wide on the fast penultimate right-hander and ran on to the Astroturf. He immediately lost purchase and flew high in the air, releasing Marquez in to a clear 23s lead over another battling gaggle for third.

Espargaro's mistake elevated Tomoyoshi Koyama to second, though he had to fight hard for that too.

In a scrap that included Esteve Rabat, Bradley Smith, Randy Krummenacher and latterly the home-grown talent of Sandro Cortese, Koyama moved to the front just at the right time to inherit second.

Cortese who dropped back badly off the front-row at the start, applied determination and patience to fight his way back on to the tail of this battle for third - which became second after Espergaro's crash. And as it heated up in the final laps, Cortese made the most of a cool head and scrapped his way through, and as they came into the final corner, made a rash dive down the inside of Rabat for third.

If the Spaniard hadn't sat up slightly, they both would have fallen, but he did and Cortese was through for a podium finish in front his home crowd. Rabat gathered it up for fourth ahead of Smith, who faded in the final laps having run third himself three laps from the flag.

Johann Zarco had a grandstand view of all this as he ran around just behind this pack to finish sixth. Danny Webb was another last lap opportunist as he took seventh from
Efren Vazquez.

Sturla Fagerhaug and wild card entry Daniel Kartheininger completed the top ten, while early leader Folger, who was at one point five seconds ahead of the winner in those opening wet laps eventually finished 16th.

Pos  Rider                Bike          Time/Gap
 1.  Marc Marquez         Derbi       41m28.274s
 2.  Tomoyoshi Koyama     Aprilia    +   17.578s
 3.  Sandro Cortese       Derbi      +   18.263s
 4   Esteve Rabat         Aprilia    +   19.098s
 5.  Bradley Smith        Aprilia    +   19.713s
 6.  Johann Zarco         Aprilia    +   44.976s
 7.  Danny Webb           Aprilia    +   53.243s
 8.  Efren Vazquez        Derbi      +   53.302s
 9.  Sturla Faugerhaug    Aprilia    +   53.589s
10.  Daniel Kartheininger KTM        + 1'05.078s
11.  Randy Krummenacher   Aprilia    + 1'13.484s
12   Lorenzo Savadori     Aprilia    + 1'13.719s
13   Alexis Masbou        Aprilia    + 1'21.679s
14.  Marcel Schrotter     Honda      +     1 lap
15.  Muhammed Zulfahmi    Aprilia    +     1 lap
16.  Jonas Folger         Aprilia    +     1 lap
17.  Jakub Kornfeil       Aprilia    +     1 lap
18.  Kevin Hanus          Honda      +    4 laps

Retirements:

     Pol Espargaro        Derbi          24 laps
     Michael van der Mark Lambretta      23 laps
     Jasper Iwema         Aprilia        16 laps
     Simone Grotzkyj      Aprilia        15 laps
     Toni Finsterbusch    KTM            15 laps
     Adrian Martin        Aprilia        14 laps
     Luca Marconi         Aprilia        10 laps
     Louis Rossi          Aprilia         8 laps
     Marvin Fritz         Honda           7 laps
     Eric Hubsch          Aprilia         6 laps
     Marco Ravaioli       Lambretta       4 laps
     Alberto Moncayo      Aprilia         2 laps
     Luis Salom           Aprilia         0 laps