Argentina Moto2: Zarco gets title defence back on track with win

The race began in slightly damp conditions following earlier rain, albeit with everyone starting on slick tyres, and it was Folger who grabbed the lead from Zarco and poleman Lowes at the start.

Lowes moved ahead of Zarco on the second lap, before taking the lead on the following tour as Folger ran out wide - Franco Morbidelli also joining the leading pack as the quartet pulled away from the rest.

Another error by Folger on lap 8 allowed Zarco and Morbidelli through into second and third, but it was only Zarco who was able to put leader Lowes under serious pressure.

The decisive move of the race came on lap 13 as Zarco moved to the front for the first time, although with four laps to go Lowes ran very wide to slip behind Morbidelli, barely keeping third from Folger.

However, Lowes soon re-passed Morbidelli, who then squandered a chance of a third-place finish on the penultimate lap as he fell at low speed at Turn 1, clinging to his Kalex machine as it went down and proving unable to restart it.

It completed a miserable race for the Marc VDS team, as Alex Marquez had crashed out early on.

That left Zarco to cruise home with a 1.3 second advantage over Lowes, with Folger completing the podium a further 1.4s back.

Alex Rins was the fastest man in the closing stages, but having started back in 11th, the Pons rider ran out of time to catch the leading trio, and was forced to be content with fourth place.

Dominique Aegerter narrowly held off Hafizh Syahrin in a spirited battle for fifth place, with Qatar winner Thomas Luthi a subdued seventh ahead of Axel Pons, Takaaki Nakagami and Mattia Pasini.

Xavier Simeon was the top non-Kalex rider in 12th aboard the best of the Speed Up machines, one place ahead of Lorenzo Baldassarri - who scored three points two weeks on from dislocating both shoulders in Qatar.

Race results:

Pos	Rider	Team	Bike	Time
1	Johann Zarco	Ajo Motorsport	Kalex	40:57.806
2	Sam Lowes	Gresini Racing	Kalex	+1.347
3	Jonas Folger	Dynavolt Intact GP	Kalex	+2.754
4	Alex Rins	Paginas Amarillas HP 40	Kalex	+6.101
5	Dominique Aegerter	Technomag Racing Interwetten	Kalex	+17.384
6	Hafizh Syahrin	Petronas Raceline Malaysia Team Honda	Kalex	+17.484
7	Thomas Luthi	Garage Plus Interwetten	Kalex	+26.411
8	Axel Pons	AGR Team	Kalex	+31.016
9	Takaaki Nakagami	Idemitsu Honda Team Asia	Kalex	+31.403
10	Mattia Pasini	Italtrans Racing Team	Kalex	+31.816
11	Marcel Schrötter	AGR Team	Kalex	+32.329
12	Xavier Simeon	QMMF Racing Team	Speed Up	+40.968
13	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Forward Racing	Kalex	+47.883
14	Xavi Vierge	Tech 3 Racing	Tech 3	+56.027
15	Luis Salom	SAG Team	Kalex	+58.278
16	Danny Kent	Leopard Racing	Kalex	+58.437
17	Ratthapark Wilairot	Idemitsu Honda Team Asia	Kalex	+58.615
18	Luca Marini	Forward Racing	Kalex	+59.245
19	Julian Simon	QMMF Racing Team	Speed Up	+59.535
20	Simone Corsi	Speed Up Racing	Speed Up	+59.878
21	Miguel Oliveira	Leopard Racing	Kalex	+1:00.406
22	Robin Mulhauser	Technomag Racing Interwetten	Kalex	+1:09.254
23	Jesko Raffin	Sports-Millions-EMWE-SAG	Kalex	+1:14.825
24	Isaac Viñales	Tech 3 Racing	Tech 3	+1:16.792
25	Franco Morbidelli	Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS	Kalex	+1:41.530
26	Efren Vazquez	JPMoto Malaysia	Suter	+1 lap
27	Alessandro Tonucci	Tasca Racing Scuderia Moto2	Kalex	+1 lap
R	Sandro Cortese	Dynavolt Intact GP	Kalex
R	Alex Marquez	Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS	Kalex
NS	Edgar Pons	Paginas Amarillas HP 40	Kalex