Miguel Oliveira ended his four year wait for a maiden victory in Grand Prix racing after hanging on to win a thrilling group fight at Mugello. The Portuguese rider played his tactics to perfection in a leading group comprising of over a dozen riders, eventually defeating Danny Kent and Romano Fenati on the very last lap.
As expected, the race proved to be a slipstream showcase with the leader across the start/finish line rarely maintaining that lead into turn one. The only man who seemed able to enjoy a sustained period in the lead was Oliveira with Kent falling as low as fourteenth while the pack behind jockeyed for position.
Fenati, who also started from the front row, had his own problems navigating through the chaos but just as he had at Le Mans, the Italian looked to have judged his race perfectly. At the start of the penultimate lap, Romano used the power of the slipstream to blast through from eighth to second and as the leading pack hit the brakes for San Donato on the last lap, the Sky VR46 rider edged ahead of Oliveira to take the lead.
Miguel wouldn’t be denied though and dived back up the inside of Fenati into Scarperia and before the home favourite had any chance to line up a move down the pit straight, Danny Kent squeezed through to second at Bucine. The Briton was now in the best position to draft past on the run to the finish line but Oliveira’s exit was just good enough, enabling him to reach the chequered flag 0.071s ahead of the Leopard Honda.
After being wrong-footed by Kent, Fenati also fell behind the Mapfre Mahindra of Francesco Bagnaia but Romano outdragged his former teammate to snatch the final podium spot by three thousandths of a second. Fellow Italians Enea Bastianini and Niccolo Antonelli completed the top six, less than four tenths off the winner, while Jorge Navarro salvaged seventh for Estrella Galicia 0,0 on a day when his teammate Fabio Quartararo crashed out.
Isaac Vinales was eighth ahead of Alexis Masbou who rode superbly to finish ninth from 23rd on the grid while Brad Binder got the second Red Bull Ajo KTM into the top ten. Karel Hanika led the Grand Prix at one stage on the third Ajo machine but his race fell apart on the final lap after a collision with Efren Vazquez.
MOTO3 GRAN PREMIO D’ITALIA TIM: RACE RESULT (20 LAPS)
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