Jorge Martin fended off the challenge of Italian duo Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio to take his third Moto3 win of the season by just 0.019 seconds at Mugello's MotoGP round.
Starting from the pole position and topping all previous sessions came into the race as heavy favourite for the victory but knew it wouldn’t be easy. Getting a whole shot off the line and flying on the opening lap, Martin tried to breakaway from the off knowing the characteristics of Mugello and its conduciveness to produce leading packs of up to twenty riders.
With Martin trying to clear off up front, World Championship leader Bezzecchi and Martin’s Gresini Honda team-mate Di Giannantonio went with the Spaniard forming a leading group of three riders putting three seconds into the rest of the field after just two and a half laps.
The front three riders continued to pull away from the field whilst working each other out and weighing up how they would approach the final laps. What became evident was that the KTM of Bezzecchi was considerably quicker – up to 6kph not in the slipstream – down the home straight, with him often leading over the line despite a lack of slipstream.
The weighing and battling continued for the next sixteen and a half laps, not without incident as Martin had to avoid a hare running across the track, but going into the final sector all three riders were nose to tail with Martin leading into the final corner. Martin took a sweeping line into the final corner to slingshot himself out the corner and in doing so, he managed to hold off the fast approaching Bezzecchi who managed to beat Di Giannantonio over the line but didn’t quite get the second Gresini bike, although the Italian did keep his Wold Championship lead.
Behind the front three, Gabriel Rodrigo came out on top of a four-man group, which included Italians Andres Migno, Enea Bastianini and Tony Arbolino who finished fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
Lorenzo Dalla Porta was eighth and the head of a fourteen-man group, which went right through to Nicolo Bulega down in 21st position, including John McPhee who finished in twelfth position.