125cc: Pasini takes Donington win

The Italian had taken pole position for five of this season's races only to suffer a variety of misfortunes in the races. Prior to the British round, he had not finished above sixth this year.

But Pasini took control at Donington after an early dice with Hector Faubel and Simone Corsi, eventually pulling away to win by a comfortable 3.2 seconds.

Tomoyoshi Koyama beat Faubel to second, but the Spaniard moved into the championship lead after his teammate Gabor Talmacsi retired with mechanical problems.

The track was virtually dry by the time the race began, but it was still sufficiently damp for the intermediate tyre-shod Corsi to move into the lead at first.

He soon had a queue of bikes building up on his tail, with Pasini and Faubel particularly eager to get past.

The top three regularly went three-abreast, but every time anyone managed to inch ahead of Corsi, the Italian always managed to repass them - invariably with some extremely late braking into the Esses.

Finally on lap nine Pasini moved into the lead for good, and quickly made a break from the pack.

Corsi was shuffled back to fourth, then lost more ground tangling with Raffaele de Rosa at the Esses, before getting involved in another incident with Esteve Rabat and Randy Krummenacher at Goddards further around the same lap.

As Pasini pulled away, Koyama and Faubel battled for second, with the KTM rider eventually winning the dice and edging away to clinch his second consecutive podium finish.

Sergio Gadea beat Joan Olive and Mike di Meglio to fourth after a long multi-bike battle, in which Talmacsi had featured before retiring to the pits on lap 18.

Home rider Bradley Smith came through to seventh, ahead of de Rosa and Pablo Nieto, with Corsi recovering to 10th.

Classified:

Pos  Rider             Bike        Time
 1.  Mattia Pasini     Aprilia     41:49.049
 2.  Tomoyoshi Koyama  KTM         +   3.253
 3.  Hector Faubel     Aprilia     +   5.094
 4.  Sergio Gadea      Aprilia     +   6.781
 5.  Joan Olive        Aprilia     +   7.212
 6.  Mike Di Meglio    Honda       +   7.335
 7.  Bradley Smith     Honda       +  13.505
 8.  Raffaele De Rosa  Aprilia     +  13.885
 9.  Pablo Nieto       Aprilia     +  14.367
10.  Simone Corsi      Aprilia     +  26.672
11.  Lorenzo Zanetti   Aprilia     +  27.060
12.  Sandro Cortese    Aprilia     +  27.403
13.  R.Krummenacher    KTM         +  38.212
14.  Enrique Jerez     Honda       +  41.905
15.  Andrea Iannone    Aprilia     +  48.782
16.  Robert Muresan    Derbi       +1:05.000
17.  S.G.Giorgi        Aprilia     +1:05.720
18.  Lukas Pesek       Derbi       +1:05.847
19.  Alexis Masbou     Honda       +1:18.100
20.  Michael Ranseder  Derbi       +1:18.438
21.  Joey Litjens      Honda       +1:23.222
22.  Luke Jones        Honda       +1:24.001
23.  Steve Bonsey      KTM         +1:24.309
24.  Nicolas Terol     Derbi       +1:27.391
25.  Daniel Webb       Honda       +1:33.592
26.  H.van den Berg    Aprilia     +1:38.942
27.  Nikki Coates      Honda       +1:40.403
28.  Robbie Stewart    Honda       +1:40.553
29.  R.Tamburini       Aprilia     +   1 lap
30.  Tom Hayward       Honda       +   1 lap

Not classified:

     Rider             Bike        Laps
     Federico Sandi    Aprilia     20
     Gabor Talmacsi    Aprilia     19
     Kevin Coghlan     Honda       15
     Esteve Rabat      Honda       13
     Stefano Bianco    Aprilia     10
     Pol Espargaro     Aprilia     10
     D.Aegerter        Aprilia      4