FINAL ROUND/NOVEMBER 10, 2013
RICARDO TORMO CIRCUIT/VALENCIA, SPAIN
MOTOGP
P48
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
Lorenzo slowed the pace at the front
in hopes that his teammate Rossi
and others would be able to get in
front of Marquez. The defending
World Champion also managed to
nearly make Pedrosa crash after the
two made contact in turn two.
TEROL BY
A MILE
With the title already decided
and only minor positions up for
grabs, the second class could just
get on with the usual paint-scraping
battles. And they did. But it wasn't
for the win.
Champion Pol Espargaro qualified on pole and sprinted away, a
second clear after the first lap, and
a little more than that when Nico
Terol displaced Simone Corsi in second. The gap was
moving towards two seconds when the leader slipped
off, hurriedly remounting to rejoin at the back.
At this point Corsi was still close, while Terol's teammate Jordi Torres had gotten ahead of Dominique
Aegerter and broken free from the big pursuit pack, but
he was fully four seconds adrift of the leading pair at half
distance. By now Johan Zarco was closing steadily, having picked his way through from 12th on lap one.
Under this pressure, Torres (who had survived one
huge moment) started to close up. At the same time,
Corsi was running into tire trouble, and Terol was moving
into what would become a commanding lead, for his third
When Pol Espargaro crashed
out of the lead, Nico Terol was
there to pick up the pieces for
his third win of the season.
win of the year.
By lap 19 Torres was on the
Italian's tail, and by lap 22 he was
past and in second.
Corsi's agony was not over.
Zarco had lost a couple of seconds, but was now taking them
back. On the penultimate lap he had caught up, and
the pair battled to the end, Zarco taking the last rostrum
spot by .001 of a second in the final sprint out of the last
corner.
Tito Rabat's hopes of second overall came to naught,
as he could manage no better than a lone fifth, .3 of a
second adrift. Alex de Angelis was sixth, half-a-second
ahead of a stirring battle between Thomas Luthi and
Anthony West, the Swiss rider finally prevailing with two
laps to go.
Espargaro ended the season with a no-score, but a
265-point total.
