Ajo Motorsport’s Johann Zarco capped off his final year in the Moto2 World Championship with his seventh win, after an astonishing battle with Marc VDS’ Franco Morbidelli.
The Frenchman took the holeshot into Turn 1, but wasn’t able to exercise his usual trick of checking out quite as early as he would have liked. Morbidelli, chasing his first ever Grand Prix victory, was determined to rectify this and locked horns with the World Champion on lap two.
Zarco repelled his advances with a stunning move on the inside of Turn 4 to retake the lead. This duelling continued for several laps, with the pair passing and re-passing each other with some quite brilliant manoeuvres, and this allowed Alex Rins to get in on the action.
The Spaniard briefly held the lead on the fourth lap, but neither Zarco nor Morbidelli allowed that to last and duly deposed the Pons rider on the following lap, the Italian scything his way past the pair of them at Turn 5.
The top two settled down for several laps and eked away from the chasing Rins and Tom Luthi, though this gap vanished in a flash when they butted heads again with 18 laps still to go. This time, the fight was even more fearsome, with moves lasting five and six corners at a time.
Twitter: What a lap this has been! 18 to go but Zarco & Morbidelli are overtaking like it’s the last!
Incredible #ValenciaGP https://t.co/YOFzQDjXvm (@MotoGP)
With six laps to go, Zarco made a decisive move, taking the lead from Morbidelli at Turn 6. The French rider then proceeded to get the hammer down and darted away to victory from the Italian, who by now was beginning to suffer some serious grip issues.
Morbidelli’s problems proved disastrous for his chances of finishing third in the standings ahead of Rins as it allowed Luthi, who in turn had dropped a struggling Rins, to close right in. The Swiss rider effortlessly took second from him on the final lap, and this locked Morbidelli into fourth in the championship.
Sam Lowes ended his time in Moto2 with a positive result after a late charge saw him capitalise on Rin’s issues, mugging the Spaniard on the final corner to snatch fourth away from him. Takaaki Nakagami took the chequered flag in sixth spot ahead of Mattia Pasini, Jonas Folger, Danny Kent and Marcel Schrotter.
There was heartbreak in the latter stages of the race for Julian Simon, who crashed out of sixth place in what could well be his final Grand Prix appearance. His demise promoted Hafizh Syahrin into the points, the Malaysian trailing Lorenzo Baldassarri, Miguel Oliveira, Xavi Vierge and Simone Corsi across the line.
Alex Marquez’ season ended early after he was forced out with arm pump. He joined Isaac Vinales, wild-card Federico Fuligni, Sandro Cortese, Axel Pons and the second wild-card Hugo Clere on the sidelines.
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