2009 Catalunya 250cc Race Result - Easy Victory After Early Drama

Race results and summary of 250cc race at Catalunya:

Alvaro Bautista took a very comfortable victory in front of his home crowd at Barcelona, winning by over 7 seconds. Hector Barbera was fastest off the line, but the title rivals Alvaro Bautista and Marco Simoncelli were soon charging through to the front.

Bautista took over the lead on lap 3, and as Marco Simoncelli pushed to get after him, the Italian folded the front, crashing out at the La Caixa corner, to huge cheers from the Spanish crowd, who have still not forgiven him for the tough move on Bautista two weeks ago at Mugello. Simoncelli remounted, and limped round at the back of the field for a couple more laps before finally pulling into the pits dejected.

Bautista went on to build the lead unchallenged, no one capable of following the popular Spaniard, and cruised home to a very comfortable victory. And behind Bautista, the race order looked pretty well settled, with comfortable gaps between Barbera in 2nd and Mattia Pasini in 3rd. At mid-distance, Pasini briefly took over 2nd from Barbera, only to hand it back a couple of laps later.

But further down the order, change was on the way. Hiroshi Aoyama had lost touch with the front group early, and after a gearshift problem down the front straight, giving up a couple of seconds to the race for 3rd, but he soon recovered, and was the fastest man on track. With two laps to go, Aoyama had already caught then passed Mattia Pasini, and on the last lap, the Honda man was on the tail of Barbera's Aprilia. At La Caixa, Aoyama put a brutal pass on Barbera, diving up the inside of the Spaniard to take 2nd, a position he defended to the line. Barbera crossed the line to hold on to 3rd, ahead of Pasini.

Further down the field, American rider Stevie Bonsey made a decent debut, immediately scoring a single point for 15th place on his first ride on the Millar - Juegos Lucky Aprilia.

Results: