Moto3 Austria: Fabulous Fenati returns to winning ways

Romano Fenati fought his way back to the front of the race and then took control and sensibly controlled and maintained his lead in a mature performance to win round eleven of the Moto3 world championship in Austria.

The VNE Snipers rider had lost his pole position as one of many riders who saw their best qualifying lap cancelled, and immediately found himself in a battle for the lead with his team-mate Tony Arbolino and John McPhee.

Overtaking was risky as sticking to the dry line was essential, but the Italian pushed his Honda to the front, using all his experience to pull out a lead, which he managed as he was chased down before the riders behind turned their attention to their own battle for second to claim his first win since Motegi 2017, with a final gap of 1.097s - the first time this year the winning gap has been over a second.

An electric run to the line was won by Arbolino giving the Snipers Team a 1-2. He was flanked either side by McPhee (Petronas Sprinta Racing) who had been promoted to pole position and got the best slipstream to sneak back into third and Celestino Vietti, who put in a succession of fastest laps to catch the leaders along with Jaume Masia, on his way to fourth.

The Sky Racing VR46 Team rider was also the top rookie finisher and best placing KTM rider, while Masia risked his luck one too many times on the wetter part of the track, crashing out in the closing stages.

After a short wait Marcos Ramirez lead the race long fiery battle of the Leopard team-mates over the line, with Lorenzo Dalla Porta’s sixth enough to take back the championship lead from Aron Canet (Sterligarda Max Racing Team) by just one point, with the Spaniard finishing tenth.

Makar Yurchenko (BOE Skull Rider Mugen Race) claimed his best ever result in seventh as he continues to show improvement, while Jakub Kornfeil (Redox PruestelGP) was close behind in in eighth just holding off Niccolo Antonelli (SIC58 Squadra Corse) in the run to the chequered flag.

Albert Arenas (Sama Qatar Angel Nieto Team) made gains to climb to eleventh, with Ai Ogura recovering from his twelve place penalty to take twelfth for Honda Team Asia.

The remaining points on offer went to Ayumu Sasaki (Petronas Sprinta Racing), who also came back from a twelve place penalty for 13th, Dennis Foggia (Sky Racing TeamVR46) in 14th and Darryn Binder (CIP GreenPower), who started from the back of the grid after falling foul of the ‘three strikes’ rule for riding slowly on his way to 15th.

Deniz Oncu (Red Bull KTM Ajo) was the best of the wildcard entries in 17th . Max Kofler (Sama Qatar Angel Nieto Team) finished 20th.

Jeremy Alcoba replaced the injured Gabriel Rodrigo at Gresini, he placed 21st.

Tatsuki Suzuki was the first to exit, with Raul Fernandez and Sergio Garcia only lasting a handful of laps longer. Can Oncu clipped the back of Stefano Nepa and remounted, only to fall again shortly after at turn nine.

Alonso Lopez started the race from pit lane following his shove on his team-mate Garcia after they crashed out together in Brno. The Estrella Galicia rider climbed back to 13th before being handed a long lap penalty in the race, leaving him 16th. 

Filip Salac also took a trip around the penalty lap, which saw him drop to 19th. 

Briton Tom Booth-Amos (CIP Green Power) finished 25th.