Austria Moto2: Bagnaia beats Oliveira in epic last-lap duel

Bagnaia had seemingly got the perfect start from pole ahead of pre-race title leader Oliveira, but he suddenly lost momentum on the run into the first corner, allowing the KTM into the lead.

This also gave fellow front-row starter Fabio Quartararo (Speed Up) a chance to pass Bagnaia on the inside, but the two made contact at the apex, which dropped Quartararo to 21st while Bagnaia escaped relatively unscathed in third.

Bagnaia made quick work of passing Jorge Navarro’s Gresini Kalex on the fifth lap into Turn 9, and began to chisel into the one-second advantage Oliveira had worked up.

A rehearsal overtake was made by Bagnaia with five laps to go on the inside of Turn 9, but Oliveira came straight back through at the final corner. Another attempt was made at Turn 1, but again to no avail as the KTM got better acceleration out of the corner.

With two laps to go, Bagnaia gave it another go into Turn 9, but again Oliveira remained on top out of the final corner.

But on the final lap it was Bagnaia who emerged victorious. The Italian tried to pass at the penultimate corner once more, and Oliveira went wide while re-passing into the final turn as he just gave Bagnaia the momentum to snatch the lead on the line by 0.264s.

This once again gives Bagnaia the championship lead by three points over Oliveira.

Luca Marini made it two Sky VR46 riders in the top three as he scored his third consecutive podium finish.

Alex Marquez looked like he would win the battle for the final rostrum spot against Marini and Italtrans’ Mattia Pasini, but he crashed, for the second consecutive race, at the final corner of the event while trying to pass the former.

Pasini scored fourth ahead of Navarro and the second KTM of Brad Binder. Intact GP’s Marcel Schrotter was seventh in his 150th Grand Prix start ahead of Joan Mir’s Marc VDS, who rose from 20th on the grid. Quartararo recovered to ninth.

Augusto Fernandez’s Pons Kalex and Simone Corsi’s Tasca Racing machine were eliminated after being collected in an incident with Lorenzo Baldassarri. Remy Gardner, Federico Fuligni and Sam Lowes were also casualties of the race.

Xavi Vierge was declared unfit to race after fracturing his right wrist in a collision with Steven Odendaal in qualifying.

Race results

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	42	Francesco Bagnaia	Kalex	37'45.914
2	44	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	37'46.178	0.264
3	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	37'51.867	5.953
4	54	Mattia Pasini	Kalex	37'52.028	6.114
5	9	Jorge Navarro	Kalex	37'54.468	8.554
6	41	Brad Binder	KTM	37'54.858	8.944
7	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	37'55.040	9.126
8	36	Joan Mir	Kalex	37'58.318	12.404
9	20	Fabio Quartararo	Speed Up	38'02.164	16.250
10	27	Iker Lecuona	KTM	38'02.632	16.718
11	13	Romano Fenati	Kalex	38'02.743	16.829
12	52	Danny Kent	Speed Up	38'03.630	17.716
13	5	Andrea Locatelli	Kalex	38'09.114	23.200
14	62	Stefano Manzi	Suter	38'13.858	27.944
15	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	38'13.908	27.994
16	89	Khairul Idham Pawi	Kalex	38'14.407	28.493
17	77	Dominique Aegerter	KTM	38'14.957	29.043
18	4	Steven Odendaal	NTS	38'24.090	38.176
19	16	Joe Roberts	NTS	38'26.458	40.544
20	95	Jules Danilo	Kalex	38'27.569	41.655
21	66	Niki Tuuli	Kalex	38'27.641	41.727
22	64	Bo Bendsneyder	Tech 3	38'28.680	42.766
23	32	Isaac Viñales	Suter	38'29.725	43.811
24	55	Alejandro Medina	Kalex	38'31.286	45.372
25	18	Xavi Cardelus	Kalex	38'37.099	51.185
26	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	38'59.815	1'13.901
	73	Alex Marquez	Kalex	36'20.821	1 Lap
	22	Sam Lowes	KTM	26'00.562	8 Laps
	21	Federico Fuligni	Kalex	26'51.370	8 Laps
	24	Simone Corsi	Kalex	4'40.347	22 Laps
	87	Remy Gardner	Tech 3	4'40.608	22 Laps
	40	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	4'40.705	22 Laps