Valencia Moto3: Binder comes back from 22nd to win finale

The South African rider effectively started from pole after the quickest man in qualifying, Aron Canet, was pulled off the dummy grid after stalling his bike.

But Binder plummeted down the order on the second lap with an off at Turn 6, dropping from the leading group down to 22nd before steadily clawing his way back through the order.

The race was led at that stage by Mir, although the Spaniard was later forced to drop a place, behind the Sky VR46 bike of Andrea Migno, for having taken the lead under yellow flags after a crash involving Gabriel Rodrigo and Francesco Bagnaia.

With 10 laps to go, Binder had made his way up to fifth place behind the leading quartet of Migno, Mir and the Gresini pair of Fabio di Giannantonio and Enea Bastianini.

From there, the champion began to pick his way though his rivals, taking the lead from Mir with four laps to go - only to then drop back again with a small mistake at Turn 2 that dropped him to fourth.

That forced Binder to repeat his moves, with the decisive one coming at the first corner on the final lap. Mir came close to sliding up the inside at the last corner, but Binder held on to take his seventh win of the year by just 0.056s.

"I'm not too sure what happened, I opened the gas twice, the engine cut-out and I high-sided. It did it twice in two corners, so I thought something was wrong," said Binder of his early problem.

"But the bike was alright, carried on going and never had another problem. I never had another problem, and I pushed so hard, and to finish my Moto3 career like this is awesome."

Despite missing out on a second victory, Mir's second place allowed him to seal Rookie of the Year honours, 10 points clear of di Giannantonio - who was fifth behind Migno and Bastianini.

Juanfran Guevara was sixth, followed by Jakub Kornfeil, Philipp Oettl, Jorge Navarro (who took third in the standings thanks to Bagnaia's crash) and the surviving Aspar Mahindra of Jorge Martin.

Still suffering from injuries sustained in Malaysia, the third contender for rookie honours, Nicolo Bulega could do no better than 17th place - two ahead of recovering poleman Canet after his start-line drama.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time/Gap
1	41	Brad Binder	KTM	40'13.777
2	36	Joan Mir	KTM	0.056
3	16	Andrea Migno	KTM	0.081
4	33	Enea Bastianini	Honda	0.147
5	4	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Honda	0.713
6	58	Juan Francisco Guevara	KTM	0.899
7	84	Jakub Kornfeil	Honda	2.683
8	65	Philipp Ottl	KTM	3.145
9	9	Jorge Navarro	Honda	5.263
10	88	Jorge Martin	Mahindra	7.921
11	31	Raul Fernandez	KTM	8.081
12	40	Darryn Binder	Mahindra	8.250
13	64	Bo Bendsneyder	KTM	8.603
14	20	Fabio Quartararo	KTM	9.283
15	11	Livio Loi	Honda	9.358
16	23	Niccolo Antonelli	Honda	9.527
17	8	Nicolo Bulega	KTM	9.652
18	24	Tatsuki Suzuki	Mahindra	9.950
19	44	Aron Canet	Honda	16.838
20	55	Andrea Locatelli	KTM	18.712
21	76	Hiroki Ono	Honda	18.737
22	98	Karel Hanika	KTM	18.976
23	63	Vicente Perez	Peugeot	19.039
24	12	Albert Arenas	Peugeot	24.297
25	89	Khairul Idham Pawi	Honda	24.526
26	95	Jules Danilo	Honda	25.331
27	7	Adam Norrodin	Honda	25.370
28	77	Lorenzo Petrarca	Mahindra	48.829
29	26	Daniel Saez	KTM	48.861
30	99	Enzo Boulom	Mahindra	49.282
31	43	Stefano Valtulini	Mahindra	1'12.409
Ret	42	Marcos Ramirez	Mahindra	17 laps
Ret	48	Lorenzo dalla Porta	KTM	21 laps
Ret	19	Gabriel Rodrigo	KTM
Ret	21	Francesco Bagnaia	Mahindra