Moto2: Marquez storms through the field for Valencia win
By Lisa Lewis
Catalunya Caixa Repsol rider Marc Marquez took a stunning victory from last place on the grid in the final Moto2 race of the season at Valencia.
Marquez, who had been penalised for a collision with Simone Corsi in practice, was up to eleventh on the first lap and went on to pass race leader Julian Simon with three laps to go.
The newly crowned champion had not been on the podium before at the Cheste circuit until today's win by +1.256 seconds.
Victory also gives the young Spanish star a record points total in the intermediate class, his final total of 324 overtakes the previous best of 322 set by legend Daijiro Kato in the 250cc class in 2001.
Simon gave everything on his Blusens Avintia to try to put a halt to the charging Marquez, but is still without a Moto2 victory, finishing second.
Nico Terol had stormed to the front at both his and his Mapfre Aspar teams home circuit, the Suter rider had his best qualifying since moving to Moto2 and then fought it out for the lead with Simon, who took control when the rain returned and pulled out a lead over his fellow Spaniard. Eventually Terol finished third, his first top ten finish since moving up to Moto2.
Tom Luthi had a strong second half of the race crossing the line fourth for the Interwetten paddock team while Technomag CIP rider Dominique Aegerter who was on the podium in Valencia last year came close to repeating the feat but had to settle for fifth.
Jordi Torres continued the strong performance for the Aspar team at home with a sixth place finish.
Mika Kallio was the first non-Suter finisher placing his Kalex Marc VDS machine in seventh, Pol Espargaro's Tuenti Movil HP 40 Kalex followed in eighth, a great recovery as he slid out during the race but kept the bike running to rejoin.
Former Moto2 champion Toni Elias was ninth for the Italtrans team (Kalex) while Espargaro's team mate Tito Rabat also managed to finish inside the top ten.
Andrea Iannone was eleventh for the Speed Master team (Speed Up) closely followed by the highest finishing Brit, Gino Rea, who had made an excellent start after latching on to the back of a charging Marquez, manoeuvring his Federal Oil Gresini as high as third only to lose the front battling for position with Marquez and Aegerter. He finished twelfth.
Wild card rider Dani Rivas finished in the points on the TSR Galicia School bike in 13th, with Forward Racing's Yuki Takahashi and the Arguinano Racing rider Ricard Cardus taking the last of the points, in 14th and 15th respectively.
Marc VDS rider Scott Redding did not add to his record intermediate points score for a British rider of 161 after finishing down in 22nd. He ends the season in 5th position in the championship.
Bradley Smith finished 16th for Tech 3 ahead of his move up to their MotoGP squad, his team mate Xavier Simeon crashed out early in the race when fighting for third.
Johann Zarco is the Moto2 rookie of the year with points for the JIR Team, he had an unassailable lead for the title over nearest rival Takaaki Nakagami before the race began, both did riders did not finish the race.
