Joan Mir rode to his ninth win of the year and won the Moto3 title as prime rival Romano Fenati was only sixth when the race was red-flagged as rain suddenly soaked the Phillip Island track.

In dry conditions, polesitter Jorge Martin made a perfect start on the Gresini Honda, but it inevitably took only until the first trip down the Gardner Straight for him to be drafted by the RBA KTMs of Gabriel Rodrigo and Juanfran Guevara.

But all eyes were on Mir, who kept firmly in the lead pack which were changing every couple of corners.

Fabio di Giannantonio went down at Turn 2 on Lap 4, Aron Canet hitting the deck on the same lap with Jules Danilo down a lap later at Turn 11.

Danilo’s Snipers teammate Romano Fenati fell as low as 10th on Lap 5, but by Lap 8 Fenati was at the front, and Mir who’d been leading the lap before was down to ninth. It was that kind of race.

Marcos Ramirez was in front on Lap 10, as Guevara dropped it at Turn 1, spat out of a squabbling pack of 12 riders, but a lap later it was Ramirez who was muscled out and down at Turn 1 by Martin.

Finally, after nine laps with 14 to go, Mir had a 0.4sec lead and had Leopard teammate Livio Loi as his wingman. Fenati was in the lead group of eight, but wasn’t yet looking a potential leader.

But soon enough the situation changed, with Rodrigo, Martin, Enea Bastianini on the Estrella Honda and Adam Norrodin on his SIC Honda remaining very much in the mix and muscling their way to the front.

Then with seven laps to go the heavens opened, the race was red-flagged and on countback to 15 completed laps, Mir was in front, ahead of teammate Loi, with Martin a mere 0.008sec behind the second Leopard rider. Rodrigo, Bastianini and Fenati completed the top six.

As the rain came tumbling down, the Leopard team waved down their champion, handed him a champion’s t-shirt and Spanish flag and he took an emotional victory lap for the ninth time this season.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Gap
1	36	Joan Mir	Honda	24'51.490
2	11	Livio Loi	Honda	0.351
3	88	Jorge Martin	Honda	0.359
4	19	Gabriel Rodrigo	KTM	0.388
5	33	Enea Bastianini	Honda	0.408
6	5	Romano Fenati	Honda	0.808
7	71	Ayumu Sasaki	Honda	0.834
8	7	Adam Norrodin	Honda	1.291
9	24	Tatsuki Suzuki	Honda	3.648
10	48	Lorenzo Dalla Porta	Mahindra	4.005
11	8	Nicolo Bulega	KTM	4.036
12	84	Jakub Kornfeil	Peugeot	4.085
13	65	Philipp Ottl	KTM	4.251
14	16	Andrea Migno	KTM	6.004
15	96	Manuel Pagliani	Mahindra	6.540
16	64	Bo Bendsneyder	KTM	19.418
17	41	Nakarin Atiratphuvapat	Honda	25.293
18	14	Tony Arbolino	Honda	40.800
19	6	Maria Herrera	Mahindra	40.858
20	27	Kaito Toba	Honda	43.698
21	42	Marcos Ramírez	KTM	1'38.853
22	70	Tom Toparis	KTM	1 lap
23	58	Juan Francisco Guevara	KTM	1 lap
24	40	Darryn Binder	KTM	3 laps
NC	44	Aron Canet	Honda	5 laps
Ret	4	Patrik Pulkkinen	Peugeot	6 laps
Ret	12	Marco Bezzecchi	Mahindra	8 laps
Ret	95	Jules Danilo	Honda	10 laps
Ret	21	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Honda	11 laps
Ret	23	Niccolo Antonelli	KTM	14 laps