Moto2: Elías lengthens Championship lead with Czech victory

A controlled and well-measured ride from Toni Elías delivered the Spaniard’s fourth win of the 2010 campaign at Brno, which also marked the Gresini team’s 100th podium finish in the World Championship.

As opposed to the start of the earlier 125cc contest the Moto2 riders were met with sun as they lined up on the grid, and early in the race there were up to nine riders battling for the lead, amongst them pole man Shoya Tomizawa (Technomag-CIP) and Jules Cluzel (Forward Racing), who got off to a great start from the third row.

Arne Tode (Racing Team Germany) crashed out early on but there were few fallers, and Elías patiently monitored the situation at the head of the race, sidling up to Tomizawa. Andrea Iannone (Fimmco Speed Up) was also in the group vying for positions towards the front and the Italian moved into first position as halfway approached.

Iannone threatened to pull away as he has done more than once before this season, but Elías recovered a gap of over a second to overtake on lap 13 as Roberto Rolfo (Italtrans STR) became involved in the top-three battle. Unfortunately for the Italian a mechanical failure on the next lap ended his race prematurely after an impressive ride.

The experienced Elías started to pull away and Yuki Takahashi (Tech 3 Racing) passed Iannone to slot into second on the penultimate lap, a position he held to the finish line. The victorious Elías met the chequered flag with an advantage of 2.312s over the Japanese rider to take the 25 points, with Iannone third behind Takahashi by just over six-tenths of a second.

Cluzel and Julián Simón (Mapfre Aspar) completed the top five, with Gabor Talmacsi (Fimmco Speed Up) completing a solid weekend in sixth. Thomas Lüthi (Interwetten Moriwaki Racing) placed 11th, which means Iannone now sits second in the Championship standings at seven points ahead of the Swiss rider. Elías’ lead at the top remains strong after nine rounds and he is now 55 points clear.
 

Source: motogp.com