Assen MotoGP: 125GP stopped due to rain, Bradley Smith crashes out of lead

The 125 Assen GP has been stopped and will restart after rain has begun to fall heavily on the track.

Britain’s Bradley Smith was leading the race, more than three seconds ahead of the pack before crashing out on the slippery surface.

As happened in France back in May, there will now be a shortened race that will be counted as a totally separate race to the opening nine laps.

The new race, exactly the same as in France, will be a five-lap dash with Smith now starting from pole because he was leading the race at the end of the ninth lap, the last full lap.

With a definite drying line after the early morning rain the 38-strong field were all on slick tyres.

Bradley Smith shot in to the lead from the off as Jules Cluzel and Joey Litjens crashed out half way round the first lap. By the end of the first lap Smith was in the lead on the Polaris World Aprilia by 1.2secs but behind the Brit a good race was opening up and it was Joan Olive in second ahead of Simone Cortese.

On lap three front runner Sergio Gadea suffered a mechanical failure and was forced to pull out. Scott Redding, looking for a good race after his victory last weekend, was in 11th.

Randy Krummenacher crashed out just ahead of Redding on lap four, but the 15-year-old managed to avoid the flailing KTM. Krummenacher managed to re-join.

By the beginning of lap five Bradley Smith was 1.944secs ahead of Olive and had built that up to 2.964 by the end of lap six. But Olive had his own problems as Nicolas Terol on the Jack & jones Aprilia was trying to take his second place.

On lap nine there was a hint of rain in the air so a re-start is definitely not what Smith would want as he now had a 3.7sec lead ahead of the now second placed Terol.

And as the rain started to really fall Bradley Smith crashed out from the lead and then several riders crashed out and the race was stopped.

Fortunately as they count back to the last full lap, if he’s well enough, he will be able to start the new race on the spare Aprilia motorcycle.

 

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