KTM Ajo’s Celestino Vietti took a commanding Malaysian Moto2 victory on his return from injury to clinch his third win of the campaign.
Vietti led every lap of the race on his return from a broken collarbone after getting the jump off the line ahead of stand-in rider Jorge Navarro
The Italian took the lead of the race ahead of Ogura and the American Racing pair of Marcos Ramirez and Navarro into the first corner.
A crash in the early stages took Alberto Surra, who was replacing Fermin Aldeguer at Speed Up, out of the race alongside Senna Agius and Zonta van den Goorbergh.
Ramirez was able to overtake Ogura going into the penultimate corner of the first lap, restoring himself into second place.
Race leader Vietti managed to pull a gap on the group behind, putting a second between himself and Ramirez on the first lap.
The battle in the early stages was for the top five as Deniz Oncu was overtaken by Navarro after making a double save, while Jake Dixon forced his way through on Albert Arenas for seventh.
Ramirez was able to close the gap on race leader Vietti and was briefly able to overtake the Italian after a mistake into Turn 1.
The KTM Ajo rider was able to regain his lead, but the race became a battle between a group of five riders.
Navarro looked to recover from his shaky start and overtook Izan Guevara for fourth, before then passing Ogura to reinstate himself amongst the podium positions.
The polesitter continued on his road to recovery as he overtook teammate Ramirez for second as he hoped to hunt down Vietti for the lead.
Positions continued to change in the top five, as Ogura passed Ramirez for third and Dixon was able to overtake teammate Guevara for fifth.
As Navarro was chasing down Vietti for the lead, a technical issue for Ogura saw the world champion out of the race.
Dixon momentarily dropped behind Ramirez after Ogura’s incident in front of him, but the Briton was able to regain the final podium spot with six laps to go.
The podium positions remained locked with three laps remaining, but Guevara was still able to make progress as he overtook Ramirez for fourth.
Tony Arbolino made quiet progress through the pack and was also able to overtake Ramirez to move into the top five.
Dixon looked to have secured a podium place going onto the final lap of the race but believed that the race had finished, meaning the British rider rolled off and lost his podium place to teammate Guevara.
It was KTM Ajo’s Vietti who crossed the line to take his third win of 2024 after leading every lap of the race.
Valencian rider Navarro sealed an emotional second place as a stand-in rider for the American Racing team.
Former Moto3 champion Guevara took his first podium in the Moto2 class after overtaking teammate Dixon on the final lap of the race.
Arbolino crossed the line fifth behind the Aspar pairing, while Ramirez eventually finished sixth.
Oncu took seventh after struggling with the tyres late on in the race ahead of Aron Canet in eighth, who sealed second place in the championship with his result.
Somkiat Chantra was ninth narrowly clear of Diogo Moreira who completed the top ten.
Manuel Gonzalez led Gresini teammate Arenas over the line in 11th and 12th respectively.
Alonso Lopez finished a lowly 13th for SpeedUp ahead of Sergio Garcia in 14th.
Filip Salac was promoted to the final points position in 15th on the final lap following Jeremy Alcoba’s crash out of the race.
