DE ANGELIS TAKES FIRST MOTO2

By MICHAEL ESDAILE

SCOTT Redding took an early lead in the Moto2 race at Phillip Island with Mike De Meglio and Andrea Iannone in hot pursuit, and after three laps, Alex De Angelis had joined the front-running party.

A lap later Iannone had hit the front but Redding was more than ready to fight him for it while Di Meglio and De Angelis watched from close astern.

Iannone and Redding took turns at the front and De Angelis got past Di Meglio to be ready to pounce, which he did at MG Corner, diving down the inside of the Iannone to snatch second on lap seven while Di Meglio displaced Iannone for third.

Behind the leading quartet, Stefan Bradl, Julian Simon and Thomas Luthi were ahead of a pack led by Dominique Aegerter while newly crowned world champion Toni Elias was working his way forward from 11th.

Three laps later, Bradl had worked his way past Di Meglio for fourth and then as the race hit half distance De Angelis had displaced Redding from the lead and Iannone was still part of the tight trio out in front, positions changing lap after lap.

Di Meglio was going backwards, displaced to sixth by Simon, who also worked his way past Bradl.

With seven laps to go, De Angelis and Redding had got a small break over Iannone just as Elias emerged from the ruck to take seventh, 20 seconds behind them.

Four laps from the end and De Angelis had eeked out a lead of almost a second over Redding with Iannone a second and a half back in third, still well clear of the scrapping Simon and Bradl.

With three to go, De Angelis had made his intentions clear, opening the gap to 1.5 seconds with Redding now firmly in Iannone's sights once more.

Going into the last lap, De Angelis had stretched away to head Redding by 2.3 seconds and Iannone was another second behind.

In the end, De Angelis won his first Moto2 race by 2.1 seconds and was the seventh different winner in the class. No less than 18 different nationalities were represented in the race.

Part of his winning package was his decision to opt for the hard Dunlop rear tyre five minutes before the race started. Redding also used the hard rear but Iannone went with the soft rear Dunlop, which was why he was unable to counter-attack in the final laps.

The track temperature was 27 degrees, the warmest for the weekend so far.

For full results, click on: http://resources.motogp.com/files/results/xx/2010/AUS/Moto2/RAC/Classification.pdf?v1_8f5ea4f9