2017 Silverstone Moto3 Race Result: The Race That Wouldn’t Settle

In arguably surprising news, there was not one cloud in the sky as the lightweight class started Sunday's proceedings on the British track. What set out to be a fantastic 100^th Moto3 grand prix was exactly that until the very last lap when an incident in the leading pack caused a red flag that cut the race short and the results ended up depending on the riders’ luck at the previous crossing of the finish line.

That saw the record achievement going to Aron Canet, the Spanish rider coming from seventeenth on the grid to cross the line only six hundredths of a second in front of teammate Enea Bastianini, another four hundredths of a second pushing Jorge Martin to third place.

Poleman Romano Fenati had the perfect start, keeping himself in prime position while championship leader Joan Mir played around with the RBA Racing duo while still keeping Fenati in check. Juanfran Guevara was on a charge in the early moments of the race, making his way through into the lead by the end of lap two but, in usual Moto3 fashion, nothing lasts forever – or any longer than a few turns. Mir deposed his compatriot soon after and Fabio Di Giannantonio joined the party while Martin and Canet eagerly caught up with the leaders by lap three. Canet had started seventeenth while Martin ran wide in turn one on the first lap and found himself down in fifteenth place. The duo worked well together to make up the deficit and join the podium battle.

They were aided by the fact that the pack was slow to break, the top ten half a second away from another big group led by McPhee by lap four but the Scotsman brought down the gap soon after to merge with the leading pack and bring the likes of Bastianini with him.

Rodrigo, Di Giannantonio and Guevara were the main actors messing with Mir’s masterplan and getting ahead of him at the front, before the Italian got a little nudge in the insanity that was unfolding and ran massively wide on lap five to drop down to eighteenth position. If that would take a rider out of contention in any other class, it proved a minor hindrance in Moto3.

By lap seven, Mir was back in front and the usual contenders followed him closely, Guevara, Fenati, Martin, Rodrigo and Canet keeping the championship leader in check and with Livio Loi, Bastianini, Bo Bendsneyder, Nicolo Bulega, Philipp Oettl and Andrea Migno biding their time closely behind, although the leading pack was still basically a twenty-three-man affair by lap eight.

Martin got his first shift into the lead on lap nine but Fenati picked him up soon after, a recital of overtakes continuing to unfold for the podium positions, which meant riders were yoyo-ing up and down the group, the likes of Canet going from tenth to first and back to ninth in the space of two laps or so. Talking of which, Di Giannantonio was picking up the world championship leader for seventh place only five laps after running wide and looking completely out of contention – five laps later, the Italian was back to fifteenth.

Mir was pushed back to ninth by lap eleven as Martin found his way to the top again, battling Loi, Canet and the RBA duo. Guevara was out in the grass by the end of the lap but held it tight to miraculously rejoin in sixteenth spot. The world championship leader looked to be biding his time around seventh positon with three laps to go, leaving main rivals Canet, Martin and Fenati to get some airtime. Mir was getting a bit roughed up on the final laps, which meant that he could not challenge for the lead and only finished fifth once the final results were decided, with Rodrigo once again getting close to a podium in fourth, but will have to wait another few weeks for his next shot.

Having started sixteenth, Bastianini waited until the penultimate lap to take charge at the front, one of Rodrigo’s brave moves pushing Fenati back into Mir’s clutches. After factoring in the red flag, it left the Italian down in seventh place, losing a handful of championship points to Mir, who managed to place his teammate Loi between the two of them.

The last lap was set up to be an insane exchange but the red flag came out after the first sector was completed due to a crash involving Guevara and Bendsneyder, the Spaniard needing medical attention. That meant the results at the end of the previous lap were considered, Aron Canet declared the winner by a slim margin.

The top ten was completed by Migno in eighth place, Oettl in ninth and Di Giannantonio in tenth position, the final points going to Tatsuki Suzuki, Adam Norrodin, McPhee, Nakarin Atiratphuvapat and Manuel Pagliani.

Despite the messy race, Mir keeps his sizeable lead in the championship, Canet becoming his main rival, 64 points down, with Fenati only 2 points behind the Spaniard.

Results: