Albert Arenas snatched victory away from Jaume Masia on the final lap of the Austrian grand prix at the Red Bull Ring to further extend his points lead.
The Spaniard was once again a key factor at the head of the field across the whole 23 lap encounter, battling to hold the lead against the likes of Celestino Vietti, Deniz Oncu and Masia.
Arenas looked good to challenge over the final laps before being run wide at Turn 1 by Darryn Binder at the start of the tour, dropping him to fifth and with a small gap to make up to the leading four.
He duly did so though-partly down to coming out on top of a three-wide moment heading at Turn 3- and managed to claw his way onto the back of Masia’s Leopard Racing machine with just a few turns remaining.
Arenas got a good exit from Turn 8 and up the hill towards Turn 9, the Aspar racer then sliding down the inside of Masia to cleanly grab the lead in the dying moments of the contest.
The short run to the line allowed Arenas to hang on to his third win of the campaign by just 0.049, narrowly heading Masia and Ogura-who had joined the leading pair across the final turns and at one point looked to have been sizing up a move into the final corner to take second, albeit to no avail.
Ogura was dropped back to fourth post race after a track limits penalty along with Binder and Vietti, elevating John McPhee to third.
Binder bagged a top five result despite having to recover from another lowly qualifying result-22nd this time around- as well as surviving several near high-sides after making several daring moves into Turn 3, the South African just beating out Vietti for the position.
Snipers racer Tony Arbolino led home Oncu for seventh, the Turkish rider running around in the top three in the closing stages before dropping back across the final lap.
Completing the top ten were Raul Fernandez’ Ajo-run KTM bike and Tatsuki Suzuki, who just pipped SIC58 team-mate Niccolo Antonelli for tenth.
Ayamu Sasaki looked good to challenge for supremacy with just a few circulations remaining, but the Japanese was denied after receiving a long-lap penalty for track limits.
He dropped to 18th after exiting the penalty loop on the outside of Turn 1 before recovering to score the final point in 15th.
Romano Fenati-who won the Austrian GP with Snipers in ’19- could manage just 18th this year, while Brno race winner Dennis Foggia struggled for speed throughout the contest and crossed the line down in 21st.
Arenas’ title advantage now swells to 28 points over McPhee- now more than a race win- heading to the Styrian GP next weekend, while Ogura’s penalty means he drops to third overall, now 30 behind Arenas.
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