Aoyama takes superb win to deny Bautista

The Gran Premio bwin.com de España saw a brilliant battle between four riders at the front of the 250cc race, with Scot Racing team’s Hiroshi Aoyama ultimately emerging on top, holding off the advances of Álvaro Bautista right at the death.

The lead exchanged hands continuously throughout the race between Aoyama, Bautista and Metis Gilera’s World Champion Marco Simoncelli – the Italian falling away slightly in the final laps to eventually come home third.

As was the case in the 125cc race a Spanish rider who started on pole crashed out to the dismay of the huge home crowd, as Álex Debón (Aeroport Castello-Blusens) hit the deck when running in sixth place, with 16 laps to go.

Aoyama outfought Bautista on the very last corner, the Japanese rider beating the Spaniard in his home race just as the Aprilia man had done to the Honda equipped Aoyama last week at Motegi. Aoyama now holds the championship lead by four points from Mapfre Aspar rider Bautista.

As the front four crossed the line within three seconds of each other, Simoncelli completed the podium ahead of fourth placed Héctor Barberá (Pepe World Team Aprilia), the Italian finishing 0.063s ahead of the Spaniard.

A close battle for fifth place was won by Thomas Luthi (Emmi – Caffe Latte) who beat Mattia Pasini (Team Toth Aprilia) to the line by 0.004s.

The top ten was completed by Gabor Talmacsi (Balatonring Team), Jules Cluzel (Matteoni Racing), Roberto Locatelli (Metis Gilera) and Raffaele de Rosa (Scot Racing Team).