Lorenzo Dalla Porta took victory in the German Moto3 race at the Sachsenring after snatching the lead from Aron Canet just two corners from home.
Dalla Porta had fought for the leading positions throughout the 26-lap contest, with Romano Fenati and Leopard Racing team-mate Marcos Ramirez his main rivals for victory.
It was championship leader Canet though that would ultimately be the thorn in the Italians side, the Max Racing team rider recovering from his lowly 22nd starting position to lead heading onto the final lap.
Dalla Porta shadowed Canet though, and dived past at the bottom of the Waterfall corner to take the lead with just a corner remaining, Ramirez slipping past in the process into second position.
He looked to make a move on Dalla Porta into the final turn, but instead had to hold off Canet for second, leaving Dalla Porta to secure his second win of the season and wrestle the championship lead from Canet as he failed to take the runner-up spot from Ramirez.
Ramirez had looked to make a break just before the half-way mark, pulling a half-second gap which he began to slowly extend. He pulled around a tenth-per-lap on his rivals, which at one stage got to nearly a second. Dalla Porta began to pull him back though, with a mistake at Turn 1 for the Catalan GP winner dropping him from the lead into third. before recovering to finish second.
Fenati was forced to make do with fourth just ahead of Raul Fernandez, while Petronas SRT’s John McPhee faded to sixth as the flag dropped having fought for the lead at several points during the race.
Ai Ogura was seventh for Honda Team Asia having climbed from 16th on the grid ahead of fellow countrymen Tatsuki Suzuki and pole-man Ayumi Sasaki, who slipped to ninth unable to sustain the leading pace.
Jakub Kornfeil was another man who looked to have the speed to fight for victory for most of the race, but dropped back late on as his tires seemed to lose grip, salvaging tenth as a result.
Dalla Porta now leads the 2019 Moto3 World Championship rider’s standings heading into the summer break by just two points over Canet, with Niccolo Antonelli in third having now slipped to 38 points behind. Ramirez’s second place means he now moves into fourth overall, just nine points’ in-arrears of Antonelli.
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