Le Mans Moto2: Lowes gets first win since 2016

On a still slightly damp track, the race bizarrely started without poleman Joe Roberts in position, as the American Racing rider suffered a bike problem ahead of the warm-up lap and didn’t catch up to the back of the pack before the red lights went out.

Remy Gardner took advantage of Roberts’ absence to vault into an early lead ahead of Xavi Vierge and Lowes, but on the second tour Marc VDS man Lowes picked off both the Petronas Sprinta bike of Vierge and Gardner’s SAG machine to grab the lead.

Dixon on the second Petronas machine then charged up to second on the third lap of 26, with teammate Vierge crashing out on lap 5, and on lap 7 he took advantage of Lowes running wide at Garage Vert to take the lead.

The former British Superbike title contender had a lead as big as three seconds at one point before a recovering Lowes started to close back in, with the gap between the pair stabilising at a little over a second in the middle part of the race.

But Dixon’s hopes of a first grand prix win ended on lap 22 with a low-side at the final corner, gifiting Lowes a lead he would manage to the chequered flag to claim his first victory since the 2016 Aragon round – and his first since his ill-fated MotoGP stint.

Gardner passed VR46 rider Marco Bezzecchi on the last lap to grab second, his best result of the year, while Augusto Fernandez was fourth on the second Marc VDS bike.

From last, Roberts completed a remarkable charge to finish in sixth place behind Thomas Luthi (Intact GP). Rounding out the top 10 were Fabio di Giannantonio (Speed Up), Lorenzo Baldassarri (Pons), Enea Bastianini (Italtrans) and Somkiat Chantra (Honda Team Asia).

Points leader Luca Marini (VR46) finished out of the points in 17th following his massive practice crash that required him to be taken for hospital for a check-up.

Marini nonetheless maintains a 13-point lead at the head of the table with five rounds to run ahead of Bastianini, while Bezzecchi and Lowes are 20 and 22 points back respectively.

UPDATE: Bastianini was handed a three-second time penalty after the race for an unauthorised  tyre change prior to the race, dropping him from ninth to 11th. It means Marini's lead at the head of the standings goes back up to 15 points.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Laps	Gap
1	22	Sam Lowes	Kalex	25
2	87	Remy Gardner	Kalex	25	3.822
3	72	Marco Bezzecchi	Kalex	25	4.184
4	37	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	25	5.884
5	12	Thomas Luthi	Kalex	25	21.668
6	16	Joe Roberts	Kalex	25	29.197
7	21	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Speed Up	25	32.249
8	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	25	34.376
9	35	Somkiat Chantra	Kalex	25	35.392
10	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	25	35.521
11	33	Enea Bastianini	Kalex	25	37.720
12	40	Hector Garzo	Kalex	25	37.910
13	42	Marcos Ramirez	Kalex	25	38.423
14	62	Stefano Manzi	MV Agusta	25	43.464
15	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Speed Up	25	44.036
16	24	Simone Corsi	MV Agusta	25	44.217
17	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	25	59.550
18	19	Lorenzo Dalla Porta	Kalex	25	1'09.735
19	57	Edgar Pons	Kalex	25	1'09.751
20	64	Bo Bendsneyder	NTS	25	1'12.930
21	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	25	1'14.158
22	74	Piotr Biesiekirski	NTS	24	1 Lap
	99	Kasma Daniel Kasmayudin	Kalex	22
	96	Jake Dixon	Kalex	20	5 Laps
	9	Jorge Navarro	Speed Up	18	7 Laps
	11	Nicolo Bulega	Kalex	15	10 Laps
	27	Andi Gilang	Kalex	5	20 Laps
	97	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	4	21 Laps
	88	Jorge Martin	Kalex	2	23 Laps
View full results