Jorge Martin held off a race-long challenge from Aron Canet to capture victory in the opening round of the 2018 Moto3 season in Qatar.
Martin manoeuvred his Gresini Honda into the lead ahead of Gabriel Rodrigo at Turn 7 on the opening lap, and immediately began to pull out a gap as Enea Bastianini moved into second at the start of lap two.
By lap four, Canet had caught Bastianini, the duo swapping position before settling into a rhythm as they hunted down Martin.
Over a second clear of the battle for fourth by the end of lap four, Martin, Canet and Bastianini looked set to be the main men to fight for the win. However, Bastianini's charge faded on lap six when he fell from his Leopard Honda at Turn 6.
Canet spent the next handful of laps sizing up Martin into the first corner, but maintained second. A brief foray into the lead was immediately countered by Martin with five laps to go.
The pair ran line astern through to the final few corners, a mistake at Turn 14 threatening to derail Martin's hopes.
But the Gresini rider nailed his exit from Turn 15, which gave him enough of a buffer to roll the dice to lead onto the pit straight and secure his second grand prix win by just 0.023 seconds over Canet.
The battle for third proved an intense affair, with Lorenzo Dalla Porta giving the Leopard team a reason to smile by snatching third from pole man Niccolo Antonelli to tally up his maiden podium in Moto3.
Rodrigo headed Fabio Di Giannantonio – who came from 16th on the grid – to complete the top five, while a late charge from Honda Team Asia's Kaito Toba saw him claim seventh ahead of Japanese compatriot Ayumu Sasaki.
Jakub Kornfeil did hold third at numerous points during the 18-lap season opener, but faded to ninth at the chequered flag. Andrea Migno ended his first race for the Nieto team 10th, with Adam Norrodin, Juame Masia, Kazuki Masaki, Marco Bezzecchi and Marcos Ramirez behind.
Bezzecchi had been in that podium group, but crashed on the final lap after contact with Sasaki at Turn 6. John McPhee also crashed on the last tour in his pursuit for back-to-back Losail podiums.
Livio Loi and Nicolo Bulega also failed to make the finish, while Albert Arenas was forced to watch from the sidelines after injuring his collarbone in a crash in warm-up.
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