Moto2 at Le Mans began with 41 riders on the starting grid, but only 29 racers survived to make it to the chequered flag in a dramatic and crash filled first half of the race where Toni Elias took his second win of the season.

Alex Debon took the holeshot, but a hot riding Toni Elias came out of nowwhere and riding on the outside at the Dunlop turn took the lead, but in the back of the field with six or seven riders hitting turn one at the same time saw the first incident with Dominique Aegerter and Karel Abraham got the worst of it, going down on the track and luckily weren’t hit by the other oncoming riders.

At the end of the first lap Debon grabbed the lead only to be punished with a jump start penalty and on the fourth lap headed to the pit lane for his ride through. With Debon gone, the fight for first place was between Elias and Jules Cluzel and poleman Kenny Noyes, only to have Cluzel lowside as soon as he got the lead on lap 5. Kenny Noyes and Yuki Takahashi also crashed out of third and fourth on lap five.

Xavier Simeon who was riding in 7th suffered the same fate, only that Simeon’s riderless bike instead of heading into the gravel trap veered back on the tarmac and broadsided an innocent and luckless Alex De Angelis.

Raffaele de Rosa went through a highside that slapped him to the ground and forced Shoya Tomizawa to sit up and lose a couple of positions only to have the Japanese rider a few laps later fighting with Mattia Pasini, and both riders crashing out

With the pack now thinned out Elias continued to lead in front of Julian Simon who was debuting the Suter chassis and slightly distanced Simone Corsi and Andrea Iannone who were fighting for third place followed by Talmacsi, Nieto and Wilairot.

The race would finish in this way with Elias racing to victory with a lead of 1.336s over Simon and Corsi taking the third place on the podium.

Elias is now the Moto2 points leader and is 18 points ahead of Tomizawa who is in second despite his DNF.

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