Interwetten’s Tom Luthi held off a late charge from Ajo Motorsport’s Johann Zarco to seal his fourth win of the 2016 season, whilst championship protagonists Sam Lowes and Alex Rins saw their title aspirations take a huge blow.
Zarco knew that he had been handed a golden opportunity this weekend; not only was he on pole, but main title rival Rins was struggling with a shoulder injury and would not be fighting for the podium today. But the Frenchman wasn’t able to transform pole into the holeshot, and Luthi blasted off into the lead. Zarco got beaten up on the opening lap, and by lap three found himself down in fourth as Marc VDS’ Franco Morbbidelli charged after Luthi.
However, by the third lap, Zarco’s two main rivals in the championship had crashed out. Lowes lost the front-end of his Gresini Kalex at Turn 10 having just muscled his way past the Frenchman on the second lap, whilst Rins had fallen at Turn 3 on the opening tour having risen from 22nd to 15th.
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With a comfortable gap emerging behind him, Zarco didn’t need to get caught up in any scraps. But he knew he had the pace to challenge and set about maximising his advantage in the standings. Home hero Takaaki Nakagami made a mistake at Turn 3 on lap 11, and this gifted third to Zarco, the Frenchman finding his way past second-placed Morbidelli two laps later.
By now, Luthi had opened up a gap of nearly two seconds, though this would not last as Zarco began edging closer. Over the course of four laps, Zarco had wiped out Luthi’s advantage to just nine tenths of a second, knocking a further two tenths off that with just six laps remaining.
But Luthi wasn’t about to yield a victory he had worked so hard to achieve and kept that seven-tenth gap constant for four laps. With just two to go, Zarco was pushing right to the limit and the pair were separated by just four tenths as they began the final lap.
The Swiss rider held his resolve, however, and kept Zarco at bay to take his fourth win of the season and give his title challenge a glimmer of hope as he moves into third in the standings with a 43-point disadvantage. Zarco now moves 21 points ahead of Rins with just three races to go in 2016.
The fight for the podium went right to the wire, Morbidelli struggling with a lack of grip in the final laps. Nakagami pounced on the Italian at Turn 9, but the Marc VDS rider wasn’t giving third up so easily and muscled his way back past at Turn 11.
Sandro Cortese ended his 200th Grand Prix appearance a season-best fifth on his Dynavolt Intact GP bike ahead of Simone Corsi, the Speed Up rider stealing sixth on the line from Mattia Pasini and Julian Simon. Marcel Schrotter and Xavier Simeon completed the top 10.
Xavi Vierge enjoyed another strong day on the Tech 3 machine and took his sixth points finish of the year in 11th, leading home Luca Marini, Hafish Syahrin, wild card Tetsuta Nagashima and Isaac Vinales. Rins remounted after his lap one crash and crossed the line down in 20th.
Iker Lecuona, who has been brought in to replace the sacked Dominiquez Aegerter at the carXpert Interwetten team for the final races of 2016, retired on lap 16 after an earlier fall. He joined Axel Pons, Lorenzo Baldassarri, Alex Marquez, Danny Kent, Jonas Folger and Robin Mulhauser on the sidelines.
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