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MotoGP Austin: Third straight Moto2 win for Morbidelli

Estrella Galicia’s Franco Morbidelli continued his domination of the 2017 Moto2 season at Austin, taking an almost lights-to-flag victory over Tom Luthi in second with Taka Nakagami in third place.

Save for a couple of exchanges with team-mate Alex Marquez in the opening laps, Morbidelli was unchallenged to make it three wins from three races this year and crossed the line with a 2.6s advantage to bring his points tally to 75.

Luthi took a couple of laps to get into his stride but made his way past Nakagami, Mattia Pasini and Marquez to try and chase down the rampant Morbidelli. The Swiss did get the gap down to half a second a couple of times but Morbidelli was able to respond every time.

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“This is a great moment for me and the team, we are in fantastic shape for the championship and I hope we can continue in this way. It was a nice battle with Álex early and then I tried pulling away and got a 1.5s gap and thought to just control the race. But I messed around too much and then I saw 0.5s to Lüthi so I decided to push all the way to the finish. I forgot about trying to control the race and just went for the win,” said Morbidelli.

Luthi has never favoured the Texas track, so second here is as good as a win for Luthi while Nakagami in third is also not a fan of Circuit of the Americas.

Birthday boy Marquez was able to stick to Morbidelli for in the early stages but an error into turn 15 saw him drop baxk to fourth and Morbidelli had the breathing space to escape. Marquez then had to fight with Luthi and Nakagami but didn’t have enough rear tyre and ended up more than ten seconds in arrears at the chequered flag.

Pasini was on for a podium but crashed at turn one with 13 laps left to go, losing the front in front of Nakagami. The Italian recovered to finish in 22nd.

Dominic Aegerter took his Suter to fifth place, one ahead of Miguel Oliveira. Simone Corsi, Marcel Schrotter, Xavi Vierge and Luca Marini completed the top ten.

Britain’s Danny Kent didn’t start the race after pinching a nerve in his back…

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