Brad Binder stormed to his fifth win of the year in today’s Moto3 race at Misano after a race-long scrap with Enea Bastianini.

The South African took the spoils after a last lap pass on his rival to power himself even closer to championship honours. Bastianini took second while Joan Mir bounced back from a penalty to cross the line third.

Binder, who was still riding high from his Silverstone win a week ago, had put his Red Bull KTM Ajo machine on pole on Saturday with Bastianini just  behind him, and the Italian was hoping to make amends when the 23-lap race got underway.

The Gresini Racing rider got the better start, taking the lead at the start as Jakub Kornfeil’s Honda powered its way up to second while Binder dropped to third. Elsewhere, both Alex Fabbri and Bo Bendsneyder crashed out in the opening lap.

But Binder wasn’t in any mood to hang about and was soon back up at the front and began swapping positions with Bastianini. Behind the battle was heating up for third between Kornfeil and championship hopeful Jorge Navarro.

Nicolo Bulega, who had qualified third,  had dropped a handful of places after a poor start and the SKY Racing Team VR46 rider was on a comeback charge for the first five laps as he made his way back up to third.

By then, Binder and Bastianini had eked out a bit of a gap up front. Binder seemed in control with his rival snapping at his heels, while the battle for third raged on, now between Bulega and the Leopard Racing KTM of Mir. Navarro had crashed out on lap nine and Kornfeil had dropped back.

On Lap 18 Bastianini took the lead, and Binder tucked in behind. But it was clear Bastianini had nothing left to gap Binder, and soon Mir started to close in.

Mir’s race looked in trouble in the penultimate lap when he was handed a penalty for exceeding track limits and was forced to let Bulega past him. However within half a lap the Spaniard was back past and into third again.

The stage was set for a last lap move, and Binder was ready. The champion-elect made his move in Turn 12, and was better on the brakes into 13, leaving Bastianini nowhere to pass. Binder crossed the line to win by 0.262s from Bastianini. Mir held onto third.

The result means Binder needs to just finish second at the next round to lift the title. “From about lap four or five when everyone started to sit behind me I pushed and tried to keep a rhythm which was consistent,” he said.

“I saw we had broken  away from the second group and I looked behind and saw it was just me and Bastianini so with five laps to go I let him have a go and we lost more than half a second a lap so  just sat around and waited until the last lap and made sure I got it done.”

Scotland’s John McPhee managed to cross the line 20th after making up nine places on his Peugeot MC Saxoprint machine.