VOL. 54 ISSUE 36 SEPTEMBER 12, 2017 P77
Moto2
Mattia Pasini (Italtrans Kalex) was on pole for
a fourth race in succession but it did him little
good. In a race of maximum attrition, he was
one of the early fallers, going down almost in
formation with second-row starter Lorenzo Bal-
dassarri (Forward Kalex) into Turn Four, after
finishing lap two third and seventh.
By then, Luca Marini (Forward Kalex) and
Tarran Mackenzie (Kiefer Racing) had already
gone down, and over the rest of the race there
would be another 18 crashes, some riders fall-
ing twice on a track with lots of standing water
and very little grip.
Some more significantly than others. Most
especially Franco Morbidelli (VDS Kalex), who
had led away and finished lap three almost 2.5
seconds clear, but didn't finish lap four.
This left fellow front-row starter Dominique
Aegerter (Kiefer Suter) in a rather unexpected
lead, thanking his team for finding him settings
with good grip and his lucky stars that he was
able to make the most of it.
The Swiss rider, who claimed a single win
in 2014 and six other podiums in almost eight
years of Moto2 racing, did just that. He made
one mistake, a big slide, and lost the lead mo-
mentarily to Thomas Luthi (CarXpert Kalex), but
snatched it back at the last corner, and with-
stood constant pressure from his compatriot.
For the middle section of the race, Luthi was
seldom more than a few tenths behind, and it
was only with two laps to go that he let the gap
grow to more than a second. Of course Luthi
had the championship in mind: with Morbidelli
out it was a big chance to catch up. But at the
same time, Aegerter had to keep focus and
stay on. "I didn't want to fall off out of the lead,"
he said.
It looked for a while as if Miguel Oliveira (Red
Bull KTM) might be about to join the party,
closing insistently in third. He was just two
seconds away on lap nine, but joined the crash
list soon afterwards.
Dominique
Aegerter (77)
withstood
constant pressure
from Thomas Luthi
(12) to take just his
second Moto2 win
in seven years of
trying.
