MOTOGP
MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
FINAL ROUND/NOVEMBER 9, 2014
RICARDO TORMO CIRCUIT/VALENCIA, SPAIN
P40
LUTHI
SLIPS PAST
With the championship decided
and champion Tito Rabat from pole,
the battle was for second overall. Pagi-
nas Amarillas Kalex' Maverick Vinales
had won three of the last four races
to close to within 15 points of Rabat's
teammate Mika Kallio on the Marc
VDS Kalex.
The sting went out of the race on
the very first lap, when Vinales got it
all wrong on one of the tight corners
and went piling into the back of Kallio.
Both went down in a heap, and while
Vinales managed to restart, it was only
to retire.
But there was to be another sting,
in the tail of an otherwise typically pro-
cessional race, at least up front.
Rabat led away, with Thomas Luthi
on the Interwetten Suter in pursuit.
The Swiss former 125 champion was
glued to the Spaniard's back wheel,
one or two tenths behind every lap.
They started the last lap the same way,
and Luthi finally attacked.
It went wrong; he ran wide, and
Rabat was back in control. All the way
to the exit from the final corner.
As he accelerated away, pulling
a little wheelie, his bike suddenly
slowed, a surprised and delighted
Luthi surged past, for his second win
of the year.
The cause, Rabat explained, was
fuel starvation, caused by a surge in a
near-empty tank. "The track tempera-
ture was lower and I was sliding more,
and used more fuel," Rabat said.
He still set a record points total, of
346.
Caterham Suter's Johann Zarco
was ten seconds adrift for a lone third,
Andrea Iannone (29)
led early but made
what turned out to
be a poor decision
to switch to the wet
bike in the mixed
conditions that
never saw the track
wet enough and
finished dead last.
