Jack Miller regained control of the Moto3 championship battle with his first win in four races at the Sachsenring. The Australian led from start to finish but his victory wasn’t as straightforward as that may suggest, Brad Binder riding the race of his life to chase him all the way to the line.
Miller made a perfect getaway on the opening lap to edge ahead of Alex Marquez but the race would quickly unravel for two of their title challengers. Marquez’s teammate Alex Rins was the first to fall with a crash at turn two, an incident he later blamed on Eric Granado, before Romano Fenati added his name to the list of retirements with a heavy spill on lap four. Unaffected by the drama behind, five riders broke away with Miller and Marquez joined at the front by Binder, Alexis Masbou and Danny Kent.
Binder, still chasing his maiden rostrum in Moto3, was quickly emerging as the main threat to Miller having dispensed with Marquez on lap ten. The South African would regularly close in on the KTM on the descent from turn eleven but Miller’s prowess on the brakes would rebuff any attack from the Mahindra rider, ensuring he would stay ahead for the entirety of the race.
Unable to keep pace with the top two, Marquez was sucked back into a battle with Masbou and Kent over third with the Frenchman diving past the Spaniard two corners from home. Marquez threw everything at the last corner in a desperate attempt to regain the last rostrum spot but Masbou held on with Marquez narrowly pipping Kent for fourth.
The local Saxoprint-RTG squad enjoyed a sensational day after the misery of qualifying with Efren Vazquez climbing from seventeenth on the grid to finish sixth, salvaging ten points for his title bid, while teammate John McPhee rose 21 places from his disastrous starting slot to finish seventh. Isaac Vinales was eighth ahead of Matteo Ferrari in a career-best ninth with Juanfran Guevara rounding out the top ten.