Luthi launches title bid with commanding win at Le Mans

May 25, 2015
3 min read

Tom Luthi threw his hat into the ring in the fight for the 2015 Moto2 World Championship after a commanding victory in the French Grand Prix. The Swiss rider came from 6th on the grid to take the lead into turn four on the fifth lap. He then controlled the pace on his Derendinger Racing Interwetten Kalex, upping his pace when he needed to, the end result being his fourth win at the Le Mans Bugatti Circuit. Tito Rabat looked very strong all through practice, especially on long run pace. So Rabat came into the race as clear favourite. But he failed to make any dent into Luthi's lead. The Marc VDS rider passed Johann Zarco's Ajo Kalex on the nineteenth lap into turn three, and it looked as if 'old' Tito was about to rear his head. Instead, he has to wait another two weeks for that first win of 2015. Zarco lead briefly in the opening laps, but couldn't match the pace of Luthi or Rabat, and began to fall away from the Spaniard as the laps counted down. The Frenchman can't be too disappointed with his day though as he retains the lead in the standings by 21 points. Sam Lowes was the only rider to run the soft rear Dunlop tyre, which should have suited the hotter conditions better, and for a time it looked like the gamble had paid off as he began to edge closer to the leading trio. Alas, the Speed Up rider had to consolidate 4th. Considering the disasters of Jerez, thirteen points will do nicely for the Briton. Franco Morbidelli was a fine 5th on the Italtrans Kalex after starting outside of the top ten in 12th. The Italian made some fabulous moves on Takaaki Nakagami, Alex Rins and Luis Salom on the brakes at turns eight and three. Morbidelli suffered a small set-back when the Paginas Amarillas bike of Salom collided with him at turn seven on the penultimate lap. Franco did lose 5th to Simon, but masterfully claimed it back on the final lap. Julian Simon was 6th on the QMMF Speed Up, with Takaaki Nakagami putting in a stronger performance in 7th, Xavier Simeon 8th, Hafizh Syahrin a decent 9th and Dominique Aegerter coming home 10th. Alex Rins made a dreadful start from pole position, but was back up to 5th from 9th in a matter of a few laps. Things came unstuck again for the Moto2 rookie at turn three when he lost the front-end of his Kalex with just three laps to go. He remounted to finish 18th after a torrid afternoon for the Paginas Amarillas squad. Alex Marquez, Jonas Folger and Louis Rossi were crashers also. Race Top 15: 1st Tom Luthi, Derendinger Racing Interwetten Kalex 2nd Tito Rabat, Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Kalex 3rd Johann Zarco, Ajo Motorsport Kalex 4th Sam Lowes, Speed Up Racing 5th Franco Morbidelli, Italtrans Racing Team Kalex 6th Julian Simon, QMMF Racing Team Speed Up 7th Takaaki Nakagami, IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia Kalex 8th Xavier Simeon, Federal Oil Gresini Team Moto2 Kalex 9th Hafizh Syahrin, Petronas Raceline Malaysia Kalex 10th Dominique Aegerter, Technomag Racing Interwetten Kalex 11th Ant West, QMMF Racing Team Speed Up 12th Randy Krummenacher, JiR Racing Team Kalex 13th Marcel Schrotter, Tech 3 14th Sandro Cortese, Dynavolt Intact GP Kalex 15th Axel Pons, AGR Team Kalex