Moto2: Magnificent Marini fends off Lowes for Barcelona win

Round nine of the 2020 Moto2 World Championship took place in Barcelona at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the Catalan Grand Prix. Luca Marini came into this race as the championship leader and started from pole position.

Marini was able to convert his pole position into a holeshot ahead of the two Speed Ups of Fabio Di Giannantonio and Jorge Navarro, the #21 getting punchy on the brakes into turn one to take second. 

The Speed Up riders were soon joined in their pursuit of Marini by Sam Lowes, although once the Briton had passed Navarro the Spaniard dropped quite sharply off the back of the leading three. 

Lowes then made a move on Di Giannantonio for second place. It did not work out for either of them, as Lowes lost the rear on entry and had to sit the bike up and release the brake to avoid going down and probably taking all three of the leaders out of the race. The #22 did well to avoid that hypothetical catastrophe, and similarly Di Giannantonio did well to avoid Lowes when he came barreling through on the inside somewhat out of control. Di Giannantonio was able to square Lowes off and reclaim second place, but the mix up had given Marini a break of over one second.

Lowes finally made the move stick a few corners later at the start of the next lap in turn one. He had some work to do, though, to close in on Marini. But within three laps, the gap had been almost completely erased by Lowes and the fight was on at the front.

There was no rush from Lowes. He sat behind Marini for five laps or so, before finally making his move at the beginning of lap 16 at turn one, a clean block pass that gave Marini no chance to reply. 

However, Marini was not dropped by Lowes, and he remained attached to the Marc VDS rider’s rear tyre, and was able to reclaim the lead at the beginning of the penultimate lap. A mistake from Lowes at turn seven later in the same lap gave Marini the gap he needed to take a relatively comfortable – on paper – third victory of the season, and perhaps one of the most impressive of his career. The victory also saw Marini extend his championship lead back out to 20 points over Enea Bastianini. 

It seemed in the final laps, the two before Marini took back the lead, that Lowes was beginning to struggle with rear grip, this would also be an explanation for Lowes’ mistake at turn seven on the penultimate lap. Strangely, the mistake of Lowes was identical to mistake made twice by Marc Marquez in the final stages of the 2016 MotoGP race in Barcelona that was won by Valentino Rossi. Considering Rossi’s result in the premier class race later in the day, perhaps it is possible that some of the ‘magic’ that has accompanied Rossi through his career has jumped ship to his younger brother – if you’re inclined to believe in those sorts of things. 

It would make sense for Lowes to have been struggling more for rear grip at the end compared to Marini. Everyone was on the limit for grip this weekend, in all classes, and with Lowes having to come from fifth place to fight with the #10, who instead remained out front for most of the race, it is understandable that he would have had to use more tyre to get there. But, although he missed the victory, there was little to be ashamed about for Lowes, who took his second podium in two races, the first time he has done that since early 2016 when he was on the box in Argentina and Jerez. 2020 is proving Lowes’ best year of Grand Prix racing, and it seems that a win should be coming along soon enough.

Completing the podium was Fabio Di Giannantonio. The Speed Ups have worked well in Barcelona, and the Italian was able to take advantage of that to take his first podium of the season, his first since he fought with Augusto Fernandez for the San Marinese victory last season in Misano. 

Jorge Navarro confirmed the step of Speed Up this weekend by sealing fourth place. He spent much of the race battling with Joe Roberts, and that battle went down to the wire with the Spaniard just about coming out on top. Roberts ended in fifth place, his best result since his podium in Brno, just ahead of Enea Bastianini whose late charge came too late to achieve more than sixth and now lies that aforementioned 20 points behind Marini. 

Marco Bezzecchi’s race was messy, making many mistakes in the start of the race that saw him drop to the lower reaches of the top 10. He did not recover from there, and finished 2.5 seconds adrift of Bastianini in seventh, meaning he is now 36 points behind his teammate in the championship.

Behind Bezzecchi was Aron Canet, whose pace was strong before a mistake a turn 10 dropped him behind Bezzecchi, where he remained for the rest of the race, finishing eighth in the end ahead of Marcos Ramirez and Marcel Schrotter who rounded out the top 10. 

Tom Luthi finished 11th, ahead of Tetsuta Nagashima, Hector Garzo, Edgar Pons and Simone Corsi who took the final point in 15th. 

Remy Gardner was 16th after a long lap penalty and avoiding a crash for Lorenzo Baldassarri in the final corner of the race. Behind the #87 was Bo Bendsneyder in 17th, ahead of Hafizh Syahrin, Andi Izdihar, Kasma Daniel Kasmayudin and Piotr Biesiekirski who was the final classified finisher in 21st. 

There were a lot of retirements, starting with Stefano Manzi, Lorenzo Dalla Porta and Nicolo Bulega who were all involved in the same incident at turn 10. Both Petronas Sprinta Racing riders dropped out of promising positions, with Jake Dixon suffering a bike problem and pulling off on the inside of turn nine, and just two laps later Xavi Vierge crashing out at the same corner where Dixon had pulled off. Jorge Martin then pulled in seemingly with bike issues to complete a wretched month for the Spaniard, before Augusto Fernandez and Somkiat Chantra both crashed on the same lap although in separate incidents.