Romano Fenati has closed to within five minutes of Moto3 championship leader Jack Miller after winning the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez. The Sky Racing by VR46 rider held off a last corner challenge from Alex Rins to win his second race in succession while Miller had his toughest race of the year so far, finishing fourth.
The race had started so well for the Australian who led into turn one ahead of Niccolo Antonelli but he was outdragged by Efren Vazquez on the run towards Dry Sac on the second lap and would never lead again. Antonelli’s afternoon wouldn’t go to plan either with the Italian sliding out at the very same corner a lap later.
A leading group of six broke away as the race entered its closing stages with Fenati, Vazquez and Rins disputing victory while Miller was too preoccupied with Isaac Vinales’ Calvo KTM to do anything about the podium positions. Having started the last lap in third, Rins made short work of Vazquez on the back straight and lined himself up for a pass on Vazquez but in an unfortunate repeat of last season’s title decider in Valencia, Rins’ dive up the inside backfired and not only did he hand the victory to Fenati, but Vazquez also edged ahead to steal second.
Miller lost fourth to Vinales at the start of the final lap but outdragged him on the run to the finish line to limit the damage to his championship lead. Jakub Kornfeil also got involved with the leading pack before dropping to an eventual sixth while Alex Marquez rode a lonely race to seventh. Italian pair Francesco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini both shone to finish eighth and ninth but British duo Danny Kent and John McPhee missed out on the top ten, coming home eleventh and thirteenth respectively.