Zarco Extends Points Lead With Win

Aug 16, 2015
2 min read

Runaway championship leader Johann Zarco extended his championship lead to 79 points with a comfortable Czech GP win.

The Frenchman dominated qualifying and set a new lap record on his way to pole position and despite losing the lead early on to rival Tito Rabat and then Thomas Luthi. However, it was only a matter of time before Zarco retook the lead on lap 2 and started to gradually extend his advantage at the front. Rins and Marquez battled for fourth place and Rins soon overtook Luthi for third.

Robin Mulhauser suffered a violent high side at turn 11 on lap 5 but managed to escape without injury. Meanwhile, British rider Sam Lowes progressively made his way from a lowly starting position of 13th to finish an excellent 5th with some fast laps throughout the race showing his pure speed and had he not had the rear suspension failure in qualifying and started higher he could have challenged for the podium at least.

Back at the front, Zarco controlled the gap to Rabat and never looked threatened as the gap built to a second and only a mistake would have cost Zarco a victory. As it was, no mistake came and the Frenchamn held on for the win and Rabat followed him over line just 1.4s behind. Rins completed the podium and the result allowed Zarco to increase his championship lead to 79 points whilst Rabat leapfrogged Rins back into 2nd place in the title fight (just one point separates those two).

With 7 races remaining, Zarco has a 3 race advantage and the form he showed this weekend means he looks likely to clinch the title when the paddock heads to the Far East next month. Rabat has shown strong pace but needs to start taking points away from Zarco to have any chance of retaining his Moto2 crown.

Moto2 Czech GP Race Result Top 10:

WINNER - Johann ZARCO, 41m02.500

2ND - Tito RABAT, +1.421

3RD - Alex RINS, +1.785

4TH - Alex MARQUEZ, +4.393

5TH - Sam LOWES, +7.844

6TH - Jonas FOLGER, +8.056

7TH - Thomas LUTHI, +9.882

8TH - Sandro CORTESE, +10.074

9TH - Luis SALOM, +11.921

10TH - Franco MORBIDELLI, +12.479

Moto2 World Championship Standings after Race 11 of 18: