Moto3 Australia: Mir crowned champion in rain shortened race
Joan Mir took his first world championship in style with a ninth win of the season at a rain-shortened Australian Moto3 Grand Prix.
With the most wins in a Moto3 season, the victory also brought Honda their first win at Phillip Island with the Leopard team.
The downpour stopped a frantic battle at the front with the lead regularly changing hands as the pack slipstreamed to the line, and contact a constant.
But Mir collected his first ever points in Australia to take his tally overall to 296 and lead over the line on the lap that the race was called back to, with the team claiming a superb 1-2 with Livio Loi doing his best to help out the Spaniard at the front, while leading occasionally himself.
Third on the podium went to pole man Jorge Martin for Del Conca Gresini - an all Honda rostrum.
Top KTM rider RBA’s Gabriel Rodrigo was enjoying a duel with Enea Bastianini (Estrella Galicia 0,0) with the pair out front as the wet weather arrived, leaving them rolled back to fourth and fifth respectively as their battle wasn’t as advanced on lap fifteen.
Romano Fenati was briefly in front but could not prevent Mir winning his title again, and was sixth after the red flag for Marinelli Rivacold Snipers, leaving him runner-up in the overall standings.
Top rookie Ayumu Sasaki lead his SIC Racing team-mate Adam Norrodin over the line for seventh and eighth, Tatsuki Suzuki took ninth for SIC58 Squadra Corse, and Lorenzo Dalla Porta completed the top ten for Aspar Mahindra.
Nicolo Bulega made some progress after qualifying down in 23rd to claim eleventh as the top Sky Racing Team VR46 rider, with Jakub Kornfeil also managing a strong result on the Peugeot MC Saxoprint machine in twelfth.
The remaining points went to Philipp Oettl (Sudmetall Schedl GP) in 13th, Andrea Migno (Sky Racing TeamVR46) and CIP’s Manuel Pagliani in 15th.
Elsewhere Maria Herrera finished her first race replacing Albert Arenas at Aspar in 19th and the sole home rider; wild-card Tom Toparis; claimed 22nd.
John McPhee’s poor run of luck at Phillip Island continued as he didn’t make it past the first corner.
Darryn Binder also didn’t see the end of the first lap, falling at turn four, where Nico Antonelli fell too on the very next lap.
Fabio Di Giannantonio and Aron Canet were both running at the front when the exited with 19 laps to go, Canet was clipped by Jules Danilo, who suffered a huge turn eleven crash the following lap. Canet rejoined hoping for a restarted race, but it was no to be with the rain arriving too late for him.
Marco Bezzecchi, Juanfran Guevara fell out of the lead pack later in the race, Patrik Pulkkinen also failed to finish.
