Britain’s Danny Kent put on another riding masterclass to win today’s Sachsenring Moto3 race by eight seconds and extended his championship lead to 68 points over Enea Bastianini who finished in ?third place.
Kent has been more than half a second faster than the field all weekend and after taking the lead on lap four and towing team-mate Efren Vasquez with him, soon opened up a gap on the field which he kept extending at the rate of half a second or more until it was the business end of 11 seconds on third placed Bastianini with ten laps to go.
Vasquez had no answer to the series leader and rode around for a lonely second place but Bastianini just nicked the final podium spot from Valentino’s Rossi’s Romano Fenati by 0.026s on the drag to the line.
Fenti had come from 12th place on the grid and across a substantial gap to fight his way through a pack that included not only Bastianini but Nico Antonello, Brad Binder, Jorge Navarro and Aleix Masbou.
Antonelli looked like he had the pace to just pinch third place but Bastianini barged his way through at turn 12 with Binder following him. Fenati kept an eye on the action ahead and then shoved his way through the third with three laps to go.
Bastianini was having none of it, however, pushing back past but Fenati looked to have the pace as the rolled into the last corner on the last lap. But Bastianini kept more corner speed and took advantage of Fenati’s lost momentum to take 16 points.
Scotland’s John McPhee had a disappointing day, finishing in 17th place. Fabio Quartararo crashed out on lap seven while Miguel Oliveira did not start after breaking his wrist on Friday.
