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Australian Moto3: Mir takes ninth win and clinches championship

Joan Mir rode to his ninth win of the year and won the Moto3 title as prime rival Romano Fenati was only sixth when the race was red-flagged as rain suddenly soaked the Phillip Island track.

Joan Mir, Leopard Racing

Joan Mir, Leopard Racing

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

In dry conditions, polesitter Jorge Martin made a perfect start on the Gresini Honda, but it inevitably took only until the first trip down the Gardner Straight for him to be drafted by the RBA KTMs of Gabriel Rodrigo and Juanfran Guevara.

But all eyes were on Mir, who kept firmly in the lead pack which were changing every couple of corners.

Fabio di Giannantonio went down at Turn 2 on Lap 4, Aron Canet hitting the deck on the same lap with Jules Danilo down a lap later at Turn 11.

Danilo’s Snipers teammate Romano Fenati fell as low as 10th on Lap 5, but by Lap 8 Fenati was at the front, and Mir who’d been leading the lap before was down to ninth. It was that kind of race.

Marcos Ramirez was in front on Lap 10, as Guevara dropped it at Turn 1, spat out of a squabbling pack of 12 riders, but a lap later it was Ramirez who was muscled out and down at Turn 1 by Martin.

Finally, after nine laps with 14 to go, Mir had a 0.4sec lead and had Leopard teammate Livio Loi as his wingman. Fenati was in the lead group of eight, but wasn’t yet looking a potential leader.

But soon enough the situation changed, with Rodrigo, Martin, Enea Bastianini on the Estrella Honda and Adam Norrodin on his SIC Honda remaining very much in the mix and muscling their way to the front.

Then with seven laps to go the heavens opened, the race was red-flagged and on countback to 15 completed laps, Mir was in front, ahead of teammate Loi, with Martin a mere 0.008sec behind the second Leopard rider. Rodrigo, Bastianini and Fenati completed the top six.

As the rain came tumbling down, the Leopard team waved down their champion, handed him a champion’s t-shirt and Spanish flag and he took an emotional victory lap for the ninth time this season.

Race results:

ClaRiderBikeGap
1 36 spain  Joan Mir  Honda 24'51.490
2 11 belgium  Livio Loi  Honda 0.351
3 88 spain  Jorge Martin  Honda 0.359
4 19 spain  Gabriel Rodrigo  KTM 0.388
5 33 italy  Enea Bastianini  Honda 0.408
6 5 italy  Romano Fenati  Honda 0.808
7 71 japan  Ayumu Sasaki  Honda 0.834
8 7 malaysia  Adam Norrodin  Honda 1.291
9 24 japan  Tatsuki Suzuki  Honda 3.648
10 48 italy  Lorenzo Dalla Porta  Mahindra 4.005
11 8 italy  Nicolo Bulega  KTM 4.036
12 84 czech_republic  Jakub Kornfeil  Peugeot 4.085
13 65 germany  Philipp Ottl  KTM 4.251
14 16 italy  Andrea Migno  KTM 6.004
15 96 italy  Manuel Pagliani  Mahindra 6.540
16 64 netherlands  Bo Bendsneyder  KTM 19.418
17 41 thailand  Nakarin Atiratphuvapat  Honda 25.293
18 14 italy  Tony Arbolino  Honda 40.800
19 6 spain  Maria Herrera  Mahindra 40.858
20 27 japan  Kaito Toba  Honda 43.698
21 42 spain  Marcos Ramírez  KTM 1'38.853
22 70 australia  Tom Toparis  KTM 1 lap 
23 58 spain  Juan Francisco Guevara  KTM 1 lap 
24 40 south_africa  Darryn Binder  KTM 3 laps 
NC 44 spain  Aron Canet  Honda 5 laps 
Ret  4 finland  Patrik Pulkkinen  Peugeot 6 laps 
Ret  12 italy  Marco Bezzecchi  Mahindra 8 laps 
Ret  95 france  Jules Danilo  Honda 10 laps 
Ret  21 italy  Fabio Di Giannantonio  Honda 11 laps 
Ret  23 italy  Niccolo Antonelli  KTM 14 laps 

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