ROUND 15/OCTOBER 13, 2013
SEPANG INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT/SEPANG, MALAYSIA
MOTOGP
P52
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
RABAT AGAIN
Originally scheduled for 19 laps,
things went badly awry on the first of
them in the Moto2 Grand Prix when
Axel Pons crashed coming onto the
back straight near the front of a huge
pack. Most avoided the debris as
his Tuenti HP 40 Kalex came back
into the track, but then Thai wild card
Decha Kraisart hit the bike and all hell
broke loose. Three more riders came
down – two more of the local entries
(Zaidi and Immammuddin) and Argentinian Iturrioz, with the first-named
suffering a broken collarbone and all
five out for the restart that followed the
inevitable red flag.
The shortened race started 45
minutes later, and brought misfortune
for title leader Scott Redding, who had
made a blazing start from the fourth
row to fourth position. No such luck
on the restart, and he finished the
first lap eighth as the leaders escaped
ahead of him. And one of them was
his rival for the championship, Pol
Espargaro.
Pole starter Tito Rabat had seized
the lead from Tuenti HP 40 Kalex
teammate Espargaro on the first lap,
and gradually moved away, by a full
second on lap four.
By now, Thomas Luthi had pushed
past into second, but Rabat was
riding at his peak, and the gap kept
on stretching until it was 1.5 seconds
over the line.
It was the on-form Spaniard's third
win of the year, making his a real if
still a little distant threat for the cham-
pionship.
Espargaro firmly regained second
with two laps to go, and managed to
keep himself just out of Luthi's reach
to the end for 20 valuable points of his
own. Luthi blamed too much sliding
on his choice of the softer rear tire.
As Espargaro's fortunes improved,
so did Redding's wane.
The Englishman was struggling on
the long straights, too big for the bike;
and pushing in the corners, making
his way to sixth on lap seven as he
passed fading fast starter Takaaki
Nakagami. But he was too far behind
to catch teammate Mika Kallio and
Dominique Aegerter, the pair battling
over fourth and finishing in that order
- and not far enough ahead to avoid
the heartbreak of getting passed by
