Brad Binder wins at Phillip Island, closely followed by Joan Mir, while Xavi Vierge is 3rd. Bagnaia closed his race 12th, behind Oliveira. For the title of World Champion, we’ll have to wait for Sepang.
KTM wins again in Australia this year, but this time with Brad Binder. The South African rider conquered the higher step on the podium, ahead of Joan Mir, who managed to climb some positions up in order to give a hard time to Aki Ajo. Mir crossed the finish line 2nd, just 36 thousandths behind Binder. Xavi Vierge won the last podium step. Francesco Bagnaia closed the race 12th, just behind his main rival Miguel Oliveira. Therefore, he will have to postpone the celebration for his first World Champion title (but he will just need to set a foot on a podium step at Sepang to make it official).
Sepang will be Bryan Staring’s first race in the Moto2 World Championship, called by the Tech 3 Racing Team to substitute for the injured Bo Bendsneyder. As for Niki Tuuli and Stefano Manzi, they won’t be present on the starting grid: the Finnish rider is still suffering from the violent crash during FP3, luckily with no serious injuries; the Italian rider fell during Qualifying and he has troubles on his left wrist. The Forward Racing rider will have to undergo some more checkups at Melbourne’ hospital in order to understand if he will be able to race in Malesia.
A little before the warm-up lap, Schrötter had some technical issues and his bike needed to be removed from the 2nd place on the starting grid. The German rider ended up starting from the very last position. The battle for the podium immediately fired up, with Pasini taking the lead for a very short time before falling on Honda Turn and having to retire. The top positions then went to Binder, Vierge, Lecuona and Aegerter, but the Swiss Innovative Investors rider had to leave the race early as he fell down after hitting his fellow countryman.
There were some unexpected turns of events in this race too, such as Baldassarri’s fall when he had already managed to conquer the 2nd place. But we also witnessed some very intense fights for the podium steps all the way until the chequered flag. Eventually, Brad Binder won another race, but with a very short margin from Joan Mir (36 thousandths only), 2nd. A large group of 10 riders was battling for the 3rd place, until they managed to remain only 4: Xavi Vierge got the upper hand, ahead of Augusto Fernández, Luca Marini and Dominique Aegerter. Alex Marquez crossed the finish line 7th ahead of Jesko Raffin. Marcel Schrötter and Fabio Quartararo took up the remaining positions in the top 10.
The ranking
