Luthi was the favourite for the French GP, starting from pole, but Rins had other ideas, and so did Corsi.
Things didn’t start perfectly for Rins, as he got swamped at the start and then had to fight his way in the first few laps. Former championship leader Lowes started 9th and slid back a few places, much like Zarco, whereas Luthi got a brilliant shot off the line as the red lights went away, but ran into problems with 19 laps to go, dropping from 1st to 4th within a single lap. Apparently he was facing issues with his shift lights, and may have missed a few shifts in some critical stages of the race.
Morbidelli got a great start as well, moving into 2nd from 5th, before being overtaken and moving down the pack, fighting with Baldassarri for 4th place.
Nakagami spent a rather lonely race, coming close to Morbidelli towards to end but never a real threat.
Folger crashed again which completed a nightmare weekend that saw him crash 4 times.
Throughout the race it was Rins, Luthi and Corsi that lead by miles, while Alex Marquez crashed once again, making it a tally of 4 DNFs out of 5 race starts. The younger Marquez has had a nightmare of a season, and something big has to change for him, and soon.
With 9 laps to go, Zarco made an uncharacteristic mistake and crashed, remounting to finish the race in a disappointing 24th place. His challenge to keep the Moto2 world championship crown has looked rather out of shape till now, but then again it’s Zarco, and you can be sure of plenty of back-flips to see before the championship ends.
With 5 laps to go, it was Baldassarri who crashed, missing out on a top 5 finish. Earlier before the race, his best lap time in qualifying was cancelled due to a technical infringement, which saw him start from 7th, but in the end it didn’t really matter.
After Le Mans, Rins now leads the Moto2 world championship with 87 points, with 82 for Lowes and 69 for Luthi.
Here are the results after the end:
- Rins
- Corsi
- Luthi
- Morbidelli
- Nakagami
- Lowes
- Pons
- Syahrin
- Salom
- Oliveira