By Lisa Lewis
Spanish rider Marc Marquez took victory aboard his CatalunyaCaixa Repsol Suter during round eight of the Moto2 championship at the Sachsenring on Sunday, increasing his lead in the championship to 43 points.
Marquez converted his sixth pole position of the season into his third consecutive win in Germany, having won the 125cc race in 2010 and the Moto2 race last year.
The race was dominated by Marquez, who lead for virtually the whole race, with his nearest championship competitors not in the frame for the win.
His fourth win of the season, he commented in the press conference that he found it “hard all the race to be pushing at the front” but his “confidence is good” now for the rest of the season.
The biggest battle came from Alex De Angelis on his NGM Mobile Forward Racing FTR, after changing from Suter, who was beaten into third late on by a calculated ride by
Mika Kallio who had been on the pace all weekend on the Marc VDS machine (Kalex).
Dry and sunny conditions greeted the start of Moto2, after the downpours of qualifying which shook the grid up.
After a short tussle for Marquez with Andrea Iannone the top three looked decided by midway through the race as Marquez, De Angelis and Kallio pulled out a gap on the rest of the field.
Pol Espargaro, who had made life tough for himself after he qualified his Pons 40 HP Tuenti down in 17th, worked his way up to seventh before running wide and having to work his way back through the pack again, he couldn't catch the leading trio but managed a lot of damage limitation finishing fourth and staying second in the championship standings.
Tom Luthi got stronger as the race went on and a late charge saw him finish fifth for the Interwetten-Paddock (Suter) team.
Simone Corsi finished sixth on the Came IodaRacing Project bike, with British rider Bradley Smith just behind in Seventh on the Tech3, the highest finishing Brit and ahead of his Belgian team mate Xavier Simeon in eighth.
Claudio Corti finished the race in ninth for the Italtrans team with a consistant performance from Dominique Aegerter completing the top ten for the Technomag-CIP team.