Jake Dixon became the first British rider to win on home soil since 2015 after beating Aron Canet in a straight duel in the Moto2 race at Silverstone.
Fantic Racing’s Canet had been leading the race since he passed polesitter Ai Ogura at Stowe on the opening lap, with Dixon biding his time in second after demoting Ogura at Brooklands on lap 2.
The two riders were in a class apart from the rest of the field, pulling more than seven seconds clear of the rest of the pack in the 17-lap contest at Silverstone.
Canet started the final lap at the front but CFMoto rider Dixon timed his race-winning pass to absolute perfection, throwing his Kalex up the inside into Abbey to claim the lead.
Canet tried his best to retaliate over the remainder of the lap, but Dixon held on by 0.177s to celebrate his first victory of the year in the intermediate class and the third of his career.
The final place on the podium went to Ajo’s Celestino Vietti, while MT Helmets — MSi rider Sergio Garcia completed a remarkable recovery from 16th on the grid to finish fourth and extend his lead in the championship.
Garcia had dropped down to 24th place after being held up at Abbey on the opening lap, but the Spanish rider quickly carved his way through the field and was running inside the top 10 by lap 7.
He even briefly snatched third place on lap 15 with a move on Manuel Gonzalez into Stowe, but was demoted to fourth by Vietti on the penultimate tour.
Garcia’s charge up the order was made easier by two of his closest title rivals hitting trouble. American Racing Teams’ Joe Roberts had a high-speed crash at Farm on lap seven, while Ogura only went backwards after starting from pole, dropping to 14th at the finish.
MotoGP-bound Fermin Aldeguer, fourth in the championship coming to Silverstone, also had a race to forget on the SpeedUp bike en route to 12th place.
Moto2 British GP — Race results
Ivan Ortola, MT Helmets MSI
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
MT Helmets — MSi rider Ivan Ortola pulled off a last-lap move to take a stunning victory on his 20th birthday in the Moto3 race at Silverstone.
Almost a dozen riders were part of the lead group that ran nose-to-tail in the 15-lap contest on Sunday, although only five had a realistic chance of victory.
Initially, the race appeared to be a three-way fight between polesitter Ortola, Boe Motorsports’ Joel Kelso and Tech3’s Daniel Holgado, who had made a rapid getaway from eighth on the grid.
The trio continued to squabble among themselves and trade the top spot for the majority of the race, before championship leader rider David Alonso (CFMoto) and Collin Veijer joined the fight for victory in the final five laps.
Veijer started the final lap of the race at the front, having made a brilliant pass at the end of the Hangar straight on the previous tour.
But Ortola then overtook Alonso into Copse to claim second, before completing an unlikely move on Veijer going into Maggots to take victory by just 0.123s — despite running wide into Club.
Alonso also managed to barge his way past Veijer at Maggots to finish second, limiting the points loss in the title fight with Ortola. With half of the 20 rounds now complete, Alonso leads the championship by a still sizeable margin of 55 points.
Fourth place in the race went to Holgado, while Kelso dropped to seventh at the finish behind MTA’s Stefano Nepa and Ortola’s team-mate Ryusei Yamanaka.