125cc: Simon takes title with last-lap pass

Simon bided his time early in the race, riding near the back of the lead group of seven bikes, but soon after Smith took the lead on lap 10 Simon moved his way from fifth to second place.

The two team-mates and title rivals swapped the lead a couple of times over the next few laps before Smith settled in the lead and the duo made a break over the chasing pack, Simon right on Smith's tail.

At the start of the final lap it looked like Smith might have had a comfortable gap, but while Smith was generally quick at the start of the lap, Simon was quicker over the second half and so it proved again, with Simon right on the leader's tail as they exited Siberia.

As they crested Lukey Heights Simon was still there and he dived inside Smith into MG, taking the lead as Smith was left with no choice but to let him through, running wide as he did so. From there there was no stopping Simon, who took the win and clinched the 125cc title as he did so.

Behind them, the battle for third was a close one, as it had been all race, with Sandro Cortese doing a great job to take the place after making a poor start and dropping down the order, firstly having to catch the lead group of seven before then making his way through them.

A whisker behind Cortese in fourth was pole man Pol Espargaro, who led most of the first half of the race before Smith took the lead on lap 10 with Simone Corsi less than two-tenths of a second further back.

Less than a second further back were sixth and seventh place, Nicolas Terol edging out Efren Vazquez by 51 thousandths of a second. The next rider, Andrea Iannone, who had been in the lead pack earlier in the race, was nearly ten seconds behind them.

CLASSIFIED:

Pos  Rider                Bike     Time
 1.  Julian Simon         Aprilia  37m55.798s
 2.  Bradley Smith        Aprilia  +   0.313s
 3.  Sandro Cortese       Derbi    +   2.057s
 4.  Pol Espargaro        Derbi    +   2.161s
 5.  Simone Corsi         Aprilia  +   2.330s
 6.  Nicolas Terol        Aprilia  +   3.239s
 7.  Efren Vazquez        Derbi    +   3.290s
 8.  Andrea Iannone       Aprilia  +  12.820s
 9.  Marc Marquez         KTM      +  22.355s
10.  Sergio Gadea         Aprilia  +  22.602s
11.  Scott Redding        Aprilia  +  29.181s
12.  Dominique Aegerter   Derbi    +  29.199s
13.  Danny Webb           Aprilia  +  29.222s
14.  Jonas Folger         Aprilia  +  29.396s
15.  Randy Krummenacher   Aprilia  +  29.461s
16.  Johann Zarco         Aprilia  +  29.709s
17.  Lorenzo Zanetti      Aprilia  +  31.251s
18.  Takaaki Nakagami     Aprilia  +  32.482s
19.  Luis Salom           Aprilia  +  58.333s
20.  Michael Ranseder     Aprilia  +  58.485s
21.  Tomoyoshi Koyama     Loncin   +1m19.017s
22.  Jasper Iwema         Honda    +1m23.621s
23.  Jakub Kornfeil       Loncin   +1m23.731s
24.  Brad Gross           Yamaha   +   1 lap
25.  Luca Vitali          Aprilia  +   1 lap
26.  Luca Marconi         Aprilia  +   1 lap
27.  Andrew Lawson        Honda    +   1 lap
28.  Levi Day             Honda    +   1 lap

NOT CLASSIFIED/RETIREMENTS:

     Rider                Bike     Laps
     Esteve Rabat         Aprilia   21
     Nicky Diles          Aprilia    7
     Stefan Bradl         Aprilia    2
     Joan Olive           Derbi      2
     Cameron Beaubier     KTM        2

FASTEST LAP: Cortese, 1m37.869s on lap 16