Red Bull Ring Moto3: Fenati scores first win since return

Fenati, whose debut Moto2 season last year was cut short when he was sacked by his team for grabbing Stefano Manzi’s brake lever at Misano, was only 16th in the lightweight-class standings this year coming into Red Bull Ring, yet set the fastest time in qualifying.

John McPhee had inherited pole position from Fenati following a raft of post-qualifying penalties, but lined up on a wet patch on the grid as a result of some rainfall in the morning.

He thus immediately dropped behind the two Snipers riders, with Arbolino and Fenati scrapping for the lead until the lattter ran wide at Turn 4 and allowed McPhee back through.

Unusually for Moto3, the leading trio began to break away swiftly after that, pulling as many as three seconds over the chasing pack by the time Fenati fought back through to the lead at the start of the fifth lap.

He and Arbolino swapped the lead several times over during the next few laps, but after getting back ahead on the ninth lap, Fenati began to make a break for it, streaking away as his teammate switched focus to fighting off McPhee.

Fenati stretched the gap over the pair to two seconds and maintained it from there onwards, easing up the pace towards the end to finish a second clear.

Behind him, Jaume Masia and Celestino Vietti had closed in on the Arbolino – McPhee scrap, and on the penultimate lap Masia tried to send it down the inside of the Scotsman for third, only to run out wide and highside off the bike on the wet part of the circuit.

This allowed Vietti into third past McPhee, but while the Italian then challenged Arbolino for second, he was instead re-passed by McPhee on the run to the chequered flag in a photo-finish.

Marcos Ramirez led Leopard teammate Lorenzo Dalla Porta in fifth, the latter taking the championship lead by one point over Aron Canet, who had to settle for 10th, some 18 seconds behind Fenati.

Makar Yurchenko scored a career-best seventh place, as he, Jakub Kornfeil and Niccolo Antonelli, slotted in between the two title rivals.

Raul Fernandez, Tatsuki Suzuki, Sergio Garcia, Andrea Migno and Can Oncu joined Masia in crashing, with Oncu first tagging the back of Stefano Nepa at Turn 3 and then falling once more at Turn 9.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Laps	Time
1	55	Romano Fenati	Honda	23	37'50.135
2	14	Tony Arbolino	Honda	23	37'51.232
3	17	John McPhee	Honda	23	37'51.240
4	13	Celestino Vietti Ramus	KTM	23	37'51.255
5	42	Marcos Ramirez	Honda	23	37'56.924
6	48	Lorenzo Dalla Porta	Honda	23	37'57.694
7	76	Makar Yurchenko	KTM	23	38'08.015
8	84	Jakub Kornfeil	KTM	23	38'08.037
9	23	Niccolo Antonelli	Honda	23	38'08.071
10	44	Arón Canet	KTM	23	38'08.165
11	75	Albert Arenas	KTM	23	38'08.865
12	79	Ai Ogura	Honda	23	38'13.935
13	71	Ayumu Sasaki	Honda	23	38'14.019
14	7	Dennis Foggia	KTM	23	38'14.375
15	40	Darryn Binder	KTM	23	38'15.090
16	21	Alonso López	Honda	23	38'15.730
17	53	Deniz Öncü	KTM	23	38'18.291
18	27	Kaito Toba	Honda	23	38'30.549
19	12	Filip Salač	KTM	23	38'30.803
20	73	Maximilian Kofler	KTM	23	38'31.167
21	52	Jeremy Alcoba	Honda	23	38'33.462
22	82	Stefano Nepa	KTM	23	38'38.688
23	54	Riccardo Rossi	Honda	23	38'43.613
24	22	Kazuki Masaki	KTM	23	39'06.866
25	69	Tom Booth-Amos	KTM	23	39'10.313
26	16	Andrea Migno	KTM	23	39'14.701
27	11	Sergio García	Honda	22	39'05.661
	5	Jaume Masia	KTM	21	34'38.095
	61	Can Öncü	KTM	11	18'57.009
	25	Raúl Fernández	KTM	8	14'11.975
	24	Tatsuki Suzuki	Honda	4	6'50.995
View full results