Moto2 Valencia: Three in a row for brilliant Binder

Brad Binder held on to first place at the second time of asking and when it mattered most as he battled Tom Luthi all the way to the chequered flag to win the Moto2 Valencia Grand Prix.

With it still windy and chilly at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit the race was shortened to sixteen laps after a dramatic and delayed Moto3 race, but the lead duo gave a great show out front with Luthi leading most of the way but always challenged by Binder.

With his final move sticking after several attempts and a clean lap in the bag the South African was able to hold on to cross the line 0.735s ahead of his race rival, giving KTM a great send-off as they depart the Moto2 class with a win.

The Red Bull Ajo rider also moved into second in the championship standings with a total of 259 after his fantastic performances in the final races after a tricky start to the season for the team.

Tom Luthi gave all he had, with all the frontrunners putting in new best race laps over and over as they pushed each other to the limit. The Dynavolt Intact GP Kalex rider was forced to settle for second on race day and third in the very close championship standings.

A win still eludes polesitter Jorge Navarro - he enjoyed his own battle for the final podium place with Stefano Manzi, the MB Conveyors Speed Up rider keeping the Italian at bay for the final podium spot.

Manzi had endured a terrible start to the race and clawed back place after place to be back with the leaders after initially putting the MV Agusta on the front row, several personal best laps brought him back into contention as he narrowly missed out on his first ever podium finish, fourth marks his best result to date and is also a best for the team this season.

Jorge Martin had run at the front in the early laps after his front row start but slipped to fifth on the second Red Bull KTM Ajo entry. Martin was also the top rookie finisher in the race.

Augusto Fernandez made up places late on to climb to sixth for Flexbox HP40, running a special 30th anniversary Pons livery this weekend.

He overtook Xavi Vierge (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) who took the chequered flag on seventh and Luca Marini (SKY Racing Team VR46), who faded to eighth.

Fabio Di Giannantonio (Speed Up) did enough to finish the season as rookie of the year, his ninth place was enough to leave him with an eleven point advantage over his rival for the title Enea Bastianini (Italtrans), who ended the race in 14th.

Sam Lowes fought hard further down the track to pull back several places and finish the season finale in the top ten for Gresini.

Veteran Mattia Pasini (Tasca Racing) brought home points again in twelfth, just ahead of Andrea Locatelli on track, the Italtrans rider did not have enough race left to serve his track limits long lap penalty so Jake Dixon was awarded his second best result of the year in 13th for Inde Angel Nieto Team. Locatelli’s time penalty left him 20th.

The remaining point went to Remy Gardner (ONEXOX TKKR SAG Team) in 15th.

Tommaso Marcon replaced Jesko Raffin at NTS RW Racing so he could concentrate on the final round of MotoE, he crossed the finish line in 27th.

After the crash-filled Moto3, Moto2 was relatively incident free - world champion Alex Marquez slid out after climbing to fifth with three laps left to run. He remounted to finish 30th. 

Lukas Tulovic was an early faller, while Sean Dylan Kelly, replacing Iker Lecuona at American Racing KTM who is making his MotoGP debut, lasted until the final lap before he too crashed out.