Marc Marquez dominates Indianapolis Moto2 race

Marc Marquez increased his lead in the Moto2 world championship to a commanding 39-points after dominating this afternoon’s 26-lap race in Indianapolis.

Once the former 125GP world champion seized the lead from fast starting Dominique Aegerter on lap four, Marquez never looked in any danger of squandering the opportunity to clinch his fifth win of the season.

He needed only two laps after hitting the front of the field to open up a comfortable advantage of 2.120s over Italian rival Andrea Iannone.

His advantage was then extended to over four seconds on lap 12 as nobody had the pace to match the supreme Spaniard, who will switch to MotoGP in 2013 as Casey Stoner’s replacement at Repsol Honda.

Closest rival Pol Espargaro was a distant second and 5.855s adrift but his victory hopes disappeared after a sluggish start from pole position.

It took him eight laps to get to the front of the pack mounting a fruitless pursuit of Marquez. By that stage Marquez was almost three seconds clear, though Espargaro did limit the damage somewhat by holding off fellow Spaniard Julian Simon to claim second.

Simon was third ahead of a scrap for fourth place that at one stage involved five riders, which was eventually won by Finnish rider Mika Kallio over Thomas Luthi.

Scott Redding was easily the leading British rider in a hard fought sixth while early leader Aegerter eventually took the chequered flag in seventh.

After his stunning battle for the podium at the last round in Mugello, it was back down to earth with a big thud for Tech 3 Racing rider Bradley Smith. The Oxfordshire rider struggled to a lowly 16th and he was a massive 39.240s behind Marquez, while Gino Rea also toiled in the scorching heat at Indianapolis to finish 20th.

1	25	93	Marc MARQUEZ	SPA	Team CatalunyaCaixa Repsol	Suter	145.4	45’13.763
2	20	40	Pol ESPARGARO	SPA	Pons 40 HP Tuenti	Kalex	145.1	+5.855
3	16	60	Julian SIMON	SPA	Blusens Avintia	Suter	144.9	+9.394
4	13	36	Mika KALLIO	FIN	Marc VDS Racing Team	Kalex	144.6	+15.549
5	11	12	Thomas LUTHI	SWI	Interwetten-Paddock	Suter	144.6	+16.138
6	10	45	Scott REDDING	GBR	Marc VDS Racing Team	Kalex	144.5	+16.805
7	9	77	Dominique AEGERTER	SWI	Technomag-CIP	Suter	144.3	+21.359
8	8	3	Simone CORSI	ITA	Came IodaRacing Project	FTR	144.3	+21.368
9	7	29	Andrea IANNONE	ITA	Speed Master	Speed Up	144.0	+25.873
10	6	71	Claudio CORTI	ITA	Italtrans Racing Team	Kalex	144.0	+26.471