Assen the next stop on Moto2 schedule

Toni Elías saw his Championship lead ever so slightly narrowed to 15 points after he finished tenth at Silverstone, and at the TIM TT Assen the Gresini Racing Moto2 rider returns to the scene of his first GP win, which came in the 125cc class in 2001.

The fight for positions behind Elías is becoming an interesting one, and with second place at Silverstone Tom Lüthi (Interwetten Moriwaki Moto2) elevated himself to third in the standings. The result – his second podium of the season – was his best since the 250cc race at Assen in 2008 and at the Dutch track he will aim to further chip away at what is a seven-point gap to second placed Shoya Tomizawa (Technomag-CIP). The Japanese rider continued to pick up important Championship points with sixth place in Britain, and his only previous experience at Assen was last season when he crashed on the first lap of the quarter-litre race.

Julián Simón (Mapfre Aspar) also scored a second podium of the campaign at Silverstone and in doing so the Spanish rider moved into fourth place, level on 51 points with Simone Corsi (JiR Moto2) after the Italian failed to finish the race. Simón and Sergio Gadea – the Tenerife 40 Pons rider is just four points further back in sixth – occupied the top two positions in last year’s 125cc contest at Assen, with Gadea winning his only race of 2009.

A first win of his career for Jules Cluzel (Forward Racing) came in the UK and lifted the Frenchman to seventh, but he has yet to score a Championship point in four attempts at Assen. Victory in the Netherlands would make Cluzel the first French rider to score back-to-back wins since Arnaud Vincent in the 125cc class in 2002 – the year he won the title.

Andrea Iannone (Fimmco Speed Up) and Alex Debón (Aeroport de Castello-Ajo) currently hold top ten places and both scored points at Silverstone. Now the action returns to track just four days later as the opening Moto2 practice session of the TIM TT Assen gets underway at 3.10pm local time on Thursday.