Zoom Gabor Talmacsi

Reigning 125cc World Champion Gabor Talmacsi held his nerve over a five-lap sprint to take his first victory of 2008, in a lower cylinder category race that had everything.

The Hungarian had come from thirteenth on the grid for the win, aided when on lap ten a red flag was shown to signal a restart under wet conditions.

This bunched up the field, but by no means meant that the Bancaja Aspar rider had an easy ride. Over the handful of remaining laps, he fought tooth and nail with a multitude of rivals before winning out in a breathtaking time round the Assen circuit. It is the first win in the class since Malaysia 2007.

On the last lap the lead and podium places changed with wilful abandon, with Belson Derbi´s Joan Olive once again heartbreakingly close to a first Grand Prix victory. The Spaniard had been a consistent force in the Dutch date, always amongst the frontrunners and starting from second after the restart.

Second in the World Championship, poleman Simone Corsi took the final podium place after his own late push for victory, the Jack&Jones WRB rider completing a rostrum separated by just 0.255.

Emmi-Caffe Latte´s Sandro Cortese came home fourth whilst Bradley Smith experienced a comparative let-off for fifth. However, whilst at the last split race in Le Mans he had experienced a disastrous start before being given a second opportunity by the rain, in Assen he benefitted from a red flag shown just seconds after he had crashed from the lead spot.

The top ten was completed by Repsol KTM´s last lap race leader Esteve Rabat, still-World Championship leader Mike di Meglio and the trio of Andrea Iannone, Nico Terol and Raffaele de Rosa.

The five-lap shootout had an adjusted grid to that of the order to pass the finish line on lap nine (when the decision was made to bring the riders in) with two crashers unable to return to action.

Blusens Aprilia´s Efren Vazquez was unable to assume his place on the front row after crashing his only bike just seconds after Smith´s tumble, whilst Marc Marquez was ruled out of the restart for having returned to the pit lane sans bike following his own fall.

© DORNA / CAPSIS International