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MotoGP
2005 - Round 13 - Sepang 125cc Race Report September 25th, 2005 |
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MotoGP
2005 - Round 13 - Sepang 125cc Race Report September 25th, 2005 |
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| Thomas Luthi started
from pole position for the third time this season and on
both the previous occasions the Swiss rider had gone on
to win the race but out to stop him will be Mattia
Pasini who starts from the front row for the eighth time
in a row. Talmacsi was the top qualifying KTM man
but Mika Kallio continues to outperform him in the
championship and if he can back up his Motegi win here
this weekend he will become the first rider to take back
to back wins since Arnaud Vincent won at Donington and
Sachsenring back in 2002. KTM's short history in
GP road racing however does smile on Sepang as the
Malaysian circuit was the scene of the Austrian
manufacturer's first ever GP victory.
Luthi got off the line well but then seemed to get swamped before turn one and Mika Kallio led the field through the first turn from Pasini but Luthi made the ground back up through turn two in order to make his way to the front of the field while Kallio got shuffled back to fourth place in the early part of the lap while Luthi seemed to pull away from the field by a bike length at every corner in order to stretch his lead out to a full second over a trio of pursuing KTM's by the time they came around to finish their second lap with Pasini in tow. Surprisingly the man leading the KTM charge was not Kallio or Talmacsi but Simon who managed to close a little ground on Luthi in the third lap to let it be known that the Swiss Honda man was not going to get it all his own way. Luthi responded on the next lap however to stretch his lead back out to over a second as the KTM men started fighting between themselves and Pasini started to lose touch with them a little in fifth place. Lap after lap Luthi continued to lead the way from the three KTM men in what looked to be turning out to be a somewhat processional 125cc race which has been quite unusual in this exciting 125cc season. With ten laps to run though Kallio broke away from his two KTM team-mates in a valiant effort to chase down Luthi and looked to be the only man with any hope of mounting a challenge. Over the next few laps Kallio did managed to reduce the gap to under a second with 8 laps to run while his KTM team-mate had been left in his wake to the tune of 5 seconds and Pasini had started to close on them again to add spice to the battle for 3rd place. With six laps to run Kallio had the gap to Luthi down to under half a second and was looking to mount a challenge for the lead sooner rather than later and was all over the back of the Honda as the laps started to count down. The battle made all that more interesting by the fact that the pair were also the chief protagonists in the fight for the title with only 3 points separating the duo at the top of the championship standings. Kallio continued to threaten Luthi at various points of the circuit while the battle for third had grown from a 3-way battle to a 4-way war as Hector Faubel had closed and joined the group in their frantic tussle for the final step on the podium. Kallio was doing everything in his power to try and challenge Luthi for the lead and had managed to pull alongside at a couple of points around the circuit but had still not managed to stick his nose in front to actually lead the race at any stage. Kallio got in the slipstream onto the main straight for the run to the flag and pulled out to try and pass on the line and to the eye there was no telling who got there first but the electronic timing recorded Luthi as the winner by an incredibly slim 2-thouandths of a second. Pasini won the war for the final spot on the podium from Hector Faubel. A great ride from Luthi who is still carrying significant injuries. particularly to his shoulder, from the huge tumble he had suffered at Motegi the weekend before.
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MotoGP Championship
2005
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