Indianapolis Moto2: Late charging Rabat takes win as Redding 3rd

A late charge from Tito Rabat gave him hsi second Moto2 victory of 2013 to beat Takaai Nakagami, while Scott Redding defended his championship lead in third.

It was Redding who led off the line, winning the drag race into turn one from his pole spot on the grid, but Takaai Nakagami was able to make a move at the start of lap two to pull out an early lead.

Despite Redding occasionally looking like closing on the leader, Nakagami was able to keep the gap consistent, while Redding slowly started to come under pressure from the chasing pack of Espargaro, Terol, Aegerter, Rabat and Jordi Torres.

Redding eventually fell victim to his championship rival, falling back to third as the Spaniard made it past on lap ten and immediatly pulled a small gap. Meanwhile, Nakagami looked completely unfazed in the lead.

However, with nine laps remaining, Nakagami started to show signs of tyre wear, with a number of big slides and near misses as the bike started to move around, 1.3 seconds ahead of Espargaro.

Rabat was the late charger, passing Aegertar and Terol to move into fourth behind Redding. Before long, he had also caught and passed Redding, before showing that there are no team orders in the Tuenti HP 40 class by passing his teammate.

With rear tyres clearly gone, Nakagami’s lap times dropped dramatically as Rabat closed him in only one lap, while behind third place turned into a battle as Redding made it back past Espargaro.

Rabat was able to take the race lead off the Japanese rider with three laps to go, and immediatly pulled a gap. Redding, pulling a hard overtake on Espargaro, forced the Sito Pons rider onto the bumps just off the line, dropping Espargaro back just far enough to allow Aegertar back into the battle.

As Rabat cleared off on the last lap, Redding was able to close in slowly on Nakagami, but wasn’t able to make a move in time to take second place.

Espargaro was fourth, only just holding off Dominic Aegertar by only 0.08. Simone Corsi was sixth, Redding’s Marc VDS teammate Mika Kallio was seventh, and Johann Zarco rounded out the top eight.

Danny Kent finished the race in 23rd place, while Kyle Smith didn’t make it to the end, crashing out on lap 10.

Redding said afterwards: “I was looking to take the win but we had problems with the tyre again, the same as Sachensring. So I concentrated on the championship and told myself ‘just beat Pol, just beat Pol.’ I’m glad the race ended when it did as the tyre had a big hole in it at the end.”

Redding was able to take valuable championship points off Espargaro, and with 26 points between them, he will now go into the British Grand Prix as championship leader regardless of what happens next weekend at Brno.

1 80 Esteve RABAT SPA Tuenti HP 40 Kalex 43’47.432
2 30 Takaaki NAKAGAMI JPN Italtrans Racing Team Kalex +0.766
3 45 Scott REDDING GBR Marc VDS Racing Team Kalex +1.741
4 40 Pol ESPARGARO SPA Tuenti HP 40 Kalex +2.628
5 77 Dominique AEGERTER SWI Technomag carXpert Suter +2.708
6 3 Simone CORSI ITA NGM Mobile Racing Speed Up +8.528
7 36 Mika KALLIO FIN Marc VDS Racing Team Kalex +8.892
8 5 Johann ZARCO FRA Came Iodaracing Project Suter +9.029
9 19 Xavier SIMEON BEL Maptaq SAG Zelos Team Kalex +9.278
10 81 Jordi TORRES SPA Aspar Team Moto2 Suter +10.754
23 52 Danny KENT GBR Tech 3 Tech 3 +43.281
DNF 9 Kyle SMITH GBR Blusens Avintia Kalex 14 Laps