Moto2 world championship leader Toni Elias scored a mature, and timely third victory of the season in the German Grand Prix, to re-establish his points advantage over Thomas Luthi in the standings.
The result was made all the sweeter by the fact that only one of Elias's key rivals finished as the race took an extraordinary toll on the established runners. Simone Corsi, Luthi, Julian Simon, Alex Debon and Yuki Takahashi all fell off in various accidents during the race.
The Gresini Moriwaki rider was bullied down the order in a chaotic start that witnessed yet another multi-bike shunt at the first corner. That accounted for, among others, Joan Olive, Lucas Pesek and Raffaele de Rosa. But in typical fashion Elias responded quickly. By lap 10 he had found his way to the front of a huge gaggle of bikes in pursuit of the two runaway Fimmco Speed Ups of Andrea Iannone and Gabor Talmasci.
Talmasci took the early lead, but Iannone - seeking recompense for the win he could have taken in Barcelona (but for a penalty having passed under yellows) - quickly moved ahead of his teammate and established a lead which initially looked unassailable. However, Elias was closing fast, and as Talmasci faded along with his medium/hard rear Dunlop, so Elias appeared to get stronger. He dispatched the Hungarian with ease and set about Iannone.
On lap 24 Elias made his move, a clean one down the inside into Turn 1, and ensured that Iannone will have to wait just a little bit longer for his third Moto2 race win of the year. The Italian afterwards admitted that he simply didn't have rear tire to defend the advances of the former MotoGP race-winner.
Corsi having fallen, an enormous battle behind him became the scrap for third. It was only settled on the last lap when Roberto Rolfo made a daring move down the inside of the feisty Fonsi Nieto in to Turn 1, and while Nieto didn't give up without a fight, he couldn't prevent the Italian taking his first podium of the season. Karel Abraham took a strong fifth position in yet another convincing performance, while Talmacsi eventually slipped to sixth.
Australia's Damian Cudlin, replacing Carmelo Morales who crashed so spectacularly in Barcelona, did well to finish seventh on the Pons bike ahead of Dominique Aegerter. Stefan Bradl was another in with a shout of a strong finish before slipping back to ninth in the end, while Yonni Hernandez completed the top ten.