By Lisa Lewis

Catalunya Caixa rider Marc Marquez took his eighth Moto2 grand prix win of the season at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit, 💧recover🔯ing from leaving his bike in neutral on the grid and dropping to the back of the field. He now leads the championship by 53 points.

Marquez had it all to do after dropping to the very back of the pack when his bike was not in gear as the lights changed 🉐and was lucky not to be colle꧒cted as the field flew past, with Dominique Aegerter coming very close to hitting the Spaniard on his Technomag machine.

The Repsol rider then carved🔯 through the field on his Suter, and despite claiming in the press conference that after his "very big mistake" he didn't think he could win the race he remained calm an𒈔d didn't panic whilst attacking his way back to the front.

After many moments during the race when "not 100% confident" wit🧸h the bike and trying to keep pace at the front Tuenti Movil HP 40 rider Pol Espargaro enjoyed a great battle with Marquez over the closing laps, eventually crossing the line just 0.415 behind, claiming h🀅is sixth podium from the last six races.

The Pons Kalex rider remains optimistic, saying the championship is now "difficult, but n🅘ot impossible" but that today was not to be his day as "Marc was so good".

Espargaro's team mate Tito Rabat made it an all Spanish top three, the one time race leader consol𒆙idating his first front row start since joining Moto2 into his first podium of the season. After a strong start he made the mistake of altering his riding style to compete with Marquez, breaking his racing rhythm in the process.

Next to finish was the K🌃alex of Marc VDS rider Scott Redding in fourth who found he "couldn't get the bike stopped" but still had great battles with Toni Elias, who eventually crashed out of fifth while trying to keep pace at th🐼e front and then Tom Luthi who finished in fifth on his Suter for the Interwetten-Paddock team.

Simone Corsi was next to take the flag for Ioda, placing ❀his FTR in sixth while Takaaki Nakagami was the highest placed Japanese finisher in seventh for Italtrans. Winner of the final 125cc race at Motegi Johann Zarco managed to improve his weekend by finishing eighth for JIR.

Axel Pons ensured all the Pons team bikes finished inside the top ten wit𝓰h a ninth place finish, while Aegerter took tenth on his 100th grand prix start.

Julian Simon was 11th for the Blusens team while a resurgent Ant West took anꦦother points finish for QMMF in twelfth. Aspar's Jordi Torres finished 13th with Tech3's Xavier Simeon 14th and Kiefer replacement rider Mike Di Meglio claimed the final point in 15th.

After his drama with Marc Marquez during Saturday's practice se꧅ssion Mika Kallio eventually finished in 17th for Marc VDS.

Usual frontrunner An🎃drea Iannone completed a lacklustre weekend finishing where he qualified, in 18th, for the Speed Master team.

Gino Rea came in 25th on the Federal Oil sponsore🥃d Gresini while fellow Brit Bradley Smith saw his strong weekend come to an end when he was♔ forced to retire his Tech3 Mistral machine with mechanical issues.