Alonso continued his winning run in Moto3, while the Moto2 season ended with Canet taking victory in a tense finale
The day’s action kicked off with an 18-lap Moto3 race, where David Alonso capped off his title-winning campaign with a record-extending 14th victory.
The CFMoto Aspar rider made a brilliant start from pole position to lead into Turn 1, but struggled to pull out a gap in the opening stages of the race.
With the slipstream effect so strong on Barcelona’s main straight, that meant that Alonso was swallowed up by the likes of Daniel Holgado, Ivan Ortola and Adrian Fernandez on lap 3, dropping to fourth.
This was followed by a period in which Tech3’s Holgado and Leopard Racing’s Fernandez traded the lead on virtually every lap, with Holgado overtaking Fernandez a number of times into Turn 1, only for the latter to strike back in the tighter sections of the track.
Alonso dropped as low as eighth by lap six but started gradually coming back at the frontrunners, passing Holgado for second on lap 11.
It was on lap 14 that he finally hit the front, as he moved past Fernandez around the outside of Turn 1.
However, his job wasn’t over, with Fernandez, Boe Motorsport’s David Munoz and MT Helmets — MSi rider Ortola using the slipstream to demote him back to fourth with three laps to run. To make matters worse, he was forced wide by Ortola at Turn 4 on the same tour, losing further ground.
But the 18-year-old quickly fought back to third at the start of the penultimate tour and then dove up the inside of Holgado into Turn 10 to snatch second position. When Fernandez ran wide at the exit of the same corner, Alonso needed no second invitation to retake the lead.
Holding his line on the final lap, Alonso scored an incredible victory to become the first rider to win 14 races in a single season in any class of the world championship.
Holgado took the chequered flag 0.147s behind in second to secure the runner-up spot in the championship, while a three-second penalty for taking a shortcut at Turn 1 on the final lap dropped Fernandez from third to 11th in the final reckoning.
The biggest beneficiary of Fernandez’s sanction was his team-mate and Moto3 rookie Angel Piqueras, who claimed the final podium position ahead of Ajo’s Jose Antonio Rueda and MT Helmets — MSi rider Ryusei Yamanaka.
Munoz and Ortola slumped to sixth and ninth respectively.
Moto3 Solidarity Grand Prix result
| 1 |
CFMOTO Valresa Aspar Team |
80 | CF MOTO | 18 |
|
154.9 | 25 | |||
| 2 |
|
96 | GASGAS | 18 |
0.147 |
154.9 | 20 | |||
| 3 |
Leopard Racing |
36 | Honda | 18 |
1.063 |
154.8 | 16 | |||
| 4 |
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing |
99 | KTM | 18 |
0.142 |
154.8 | 13 | |||
| 5 |
|
6 | KTM | 18 |
0.333 |
154.8 | 11 | |||
| 6 |
|
64 | KTM | 18 |
|
154.8 | 10 | |||
| 7 |
|
72 | Honda | 18 |
0.195 |
154.7 | 9 | |||
| 8 |
Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 |
12 | GASGAS | 18 |
0.272 |
154.7 | 8 | |||
| 9 |
MT Helmets — MSI |
48 | KTM | 18 |
0.068 |
154.7 | 7 | |||
| 10 |
Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP |
95 | Husqvarna | 18 |
0.620 |
154.7 | 6 | |||
| 11 |
|
31 | Honda | 18 |
0.705 |
154.9 | 5 | |||
| 12 |
|
66 | KTM | 18 |
1.280 |
154.5 | 4 | |||
| 13 |
|
24 | Husqvarna | 18 |
6.125 |
154.0 | 3 | |||
| 14 |
Kopron Rivacold Snipers Team |
22 | Honda | 18 |
0.116 |
154.0 | 2 | |||
| 15 |
|
18 | Honda | 18 |
0.018 |
154.0 | 1 | |||
| 16 |
LEVELUP — MTA |
10 | KTM | 18 |
0.013 |
154.0 | ||||
| 17 |
|
19 | Honda | 18 |
0.087 |
154.0 | ||||
| 18 |
SIC58 Squadra Corse |
58 | Honda | 18 |
1.905 |
153.9 | ||||
| 19 |
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing |
83 | KTM | 18 |
0.475 |
153.8 | ||||
| 20 |
SIC58 Squadra Corse |
7 | Honda | 18 |
0.122 |
153.8 | ||||
| 21 |
FleetSafe Honda — MLav Racing |
8 | Honda | 18 |
0.660 |
153.8 | ||||
| 22 |
Red Bull KTM Factory Racing |
85 | KTM | 18 |
2.426 |
153.8 | ||||
| 23 |
CIP |
55 | KTM | 18 |
19.892 |
152.0 | ||||
| 24 |
Honda Team Asia |
5 | Honda | 18 |
0.530 |
152.0 | ||||
| 25 |
CFMOTO Valresa Aspar Team |
89 | CF MOTO | 18 |
1.120 |
151.9 | ||||
| dnf |
|
54 | KTM | 6 |
12 Laps |
145.3 | Retirement | |||
| dnf |
|
82 | KTM | 1 |
5 Laps |
87.5 | Retirement |
Canet holds off Gonzalez to win in Moto2
Aron Canet, Fantic Racing
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
In Moto2, Aron Canet fended off a late challenge from Manuel Gonzalez to claim his fourth victory of the season — and third from the last six races.
At the start of the race, Canet made a terrible launch from pole position and slumped to 10th place, allowing Gonzalez to grab the holeshot into Turn 1.
But Canet was quickly able to recover to fifth place, aided by two incidents in front of him. First, it was CFMoto Aspar rider Jake Dixon who made contact with Alonso Lopez into Turn 5, having run wide at the first corner and dropped down the order. It sent him in the path of Jorge Navarro, taking both of them down.
Then, Zonta van den Goorbergh and Celestino Vietti had a high-speed crash under braking for Turn 1, with Deniz Oncu lucky to remain upright after also being hit by the RW Racing rider.
This meant that Canet was back up to third place by the end of lap 3, behind champion Ai Ogura and race leader Gonzalez.
The Fantic Racing rider made light work of Ogura on the following tour and then pulled off a brilliant overtake on Gonzalez at the final corner to retake the lead of the race.
By the midpoint of the race, Canet’s lead had grown to over a second, with Gonzalez likewise putting daylight between himself and MT Helmets — MSi rider Ogura.
However, Canet’s pace began to drop in the closing stages, bringing Gonzales back into play.
The two riders started the final lap with a quarter of a second separating them, but Canet defended well from his countryman to take the chequered flag with a winning margin of just 0.091s.
Finishing just over a second behind was Diogo Moreira, who replicated Canet’s Turn 14-move on champion Ogura on the final lap to snatch the final spot on the podium.
The two riders had spent the majority of the race battling for third position, with Ogura doing enough for the longest time to hold station.
The Italtrans rider got the move down on him at Turn 1, only for Ogura to strike back with a divebomb on Turn 10. However, it was Moreira who had the last laugh as he secured third place by 0.043s with a last-corner move.
Marc VDS rider Filip Salac crossed the line in fifth ahead of Ogura’s team-mate Sergio Garcia, who secured his best result since a fourth-place finish at Silverstone back in August.
Fermin Aldeguer, who will move up to MotoGP with Gresini next year, finished 10th for SpeedUp Racing after serving a long-lap penalty he picked up in Thailand.