Rookie Alex Rins took his second Moto2™ victory of the season at the Pramac Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix ahead of Lowes and Baldassarri.
Paginas Amarillas HP40’s Rins was simply untouchable at a sun-baked Phillip Island, taking a commanding victory by 6.663s from Speed Up Racing’s Sam Lowes to move into second in the Moto2™ World Championship standings. Forward Racing’s 18-year-old Italian Lorenzo Baldassarri (+10.408s) crossed the line in 3rd to record his first GP podium in his 50th Grand Prix start.
From the start it was AGR Team’s Axel Pons who took the lead through turn 1 from Lowes, but it didn’t take long for Rins to make his move into the lead. Once the Spaniard got in front he set about opening up a gap over Lowes and Derendinger Racing Interwetten’s Thomas Luthi who had moved up to third. While this was happening Pons received a ride-through penalty for a jump-start, which ended any hopes he had of fighting for his first race win.
Rins was controlling the race brilliantly at the front, while Lowes and Luthi became embroiled in an excellent tussle for second before the Swiss rider crashed out at turn 10 on lap 17, eventually re-joining to cross the line in 15th.
This left Lowes in a lonely second, but behind him Baldassarri was making his move through the field, passing AGR Team’s Jonas Folger for third on lap 18 before Folger was then forced to retire with a flat rear tyre with just four laps to go.
Rins (214pts) rode majestically at the front to take his second Moto2™ victory in just his rookie season, and in the process leapfrog the absent Tito Rabat (206pts) into second in the standings. Lowes crossed the line in second to record his fifth podium of 2015 with Baldassarri celebrating his first career GP podium in third.
Idemitsu Team Asia’s Takaaki Nakagami recovered from a terrible start that saw him down in 19th after the first lap to finish in fourth ahead of Xavier Simeon on the Federal Oil Gresini Moto2 Kalex. Simeon’s fifth was the Belgian's best result since his race win at the Sachsenring.
Rins’ teammate Luis Salom crossed the line in sixth ahead of the 2015 Moto2™ World Champion Johann Zarco (Ajo Motorsport) who had a relatively quiet race in seventh.
Mika Kallio (QMMF Racing Team), Alex Marquez (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) and Randy Krummenacher (JIR Racing Team) completed the top ten.
Robin Mulhauser was also given a ride-through penalty for a jump start, before crashing out of the race at turn 12 on the 11th lap. Sandro Cortese also crashed out of the race from 6th on lap 15, while Florian Alt retired.
Tito Rabat (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) pulled out of the weekend’s action after a heavy crash in FP2 aggravated the Spaniard’s broken radius in his left arm and he will also miss the Malaysian GP as he recovers.
