Gran Premio Motul de la Comunitat Valenciana Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport Kalex) completed a remarkable two seasons of domination of the Honda-powered Moto2 series with a hard-fought final victory in the intermediate category. He will commence his MotoGP during testing here on Tuesday.
The Frenchman fought back and forth with up-and-coming Italian Franco Morbidelli (Estrella Galicia 0.0 Marc VDS Kalex) for the first half of the race, with the pair overtaking each other several times each lap. Finally, Zarco’s experience told as Morbidelli had asked too much of his rear tyre. After retaking the lead from Morbidelli at turn six on lap 16, Zarco upped his pace and broke away from his pursuers to win his seventh victory of 2016 by more than three seconds.
Meanwhile Morbidelli fell back into the clutches of class veteran Thomas Luthi (Garage Plus Interwetten Kalex), who took second place on the final lap. Moments later Sam Lowes (Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 Kalex) pounced at the final corner to take fourth place from Alex Rins (Paginas Amarillas HP 40 Kalex). Less than one second separated Morbidelli from Rins in a typically hard-fought race in which all riders use identically prepared Honda CBR600 engines.
Takaaki Nakagami (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia Kalex) was the best of the rest, establishing himself in a strong sixth place, well clear of Mattia Pasini (Italtrans Racing Team Kalex), Jonas Folger (Dynavolt Intact GP Kalex), Danny Kent (Leopard Racing Kalex) and Marcel Schrotter (AGR Team Kalex) who completed the top ten.
