Jose Antonio Rueda produced a dominant display to claim a stellar 10th victory of the season in the Australian Moto3 race.
The newly crowned Moto3 champion rode an excellent race after taking the lead on Lap 7, and broke home favourite Joel Kelso’s resolve on the final lap to seal a dominant performance.
World champion Rueda made the best start from second on the grid and held the lead going into the first corner.
Polesitter Kelso made a good start despite losing the lead on the initial getaway, but returned to the head of the race at Turn 3.
Kelso and Rueda clearly had the pace to control the race and built a gap of over a second to the rest of the field after the first lap, with the Australian leading the Spaniard over the line.
As one Australian attempted to break away from the rest of the grid, Jacob Roulstone entered the battle for the podium, carving past Taiyo Furusato and Maximo Quiles to move into fourth.
Roulstone momentarily moved into third place after catching Adrian Fernandez, but crashed out at Siberia to end a shot at two Australians on their home podium.
As the podium battle intensified, the gap between the group of eight riders and the leading duo grew to four seconds, despite Kelso continually being pressured by Rueda.
The Spaniard finally saw the opportunity to make his move at Turn 1, and didn’t need a second invitation as he took the lead on Lap 7.
David Almansa showed strong pace throughout the early stages of the race despite serving a long lap penalty, and joined the battle for the final spot on the podium with 10 laps remaining.
With three laps to go, Alvaro Carpe decided to try and break away from the podium fight after regaining third position, pulling almost a second clear of the seven-rider pack.
At the front, Rueda crossed the line to earn his 10th victory of the season by 0.829s.
Kelso earned a home podium in second place, finishing over 12 seconds ahead of the riders battling for third position.
Carpe held off a late charge from the Aspar riders to clinch the final spot on the podium.
Stand-in rider Joel Esteban narrowly missed out on the rostrum in fourth ahead of team-mate Quiles in fifth, while Fernandez crossed the line in sixth.
Luca Lunetta completed the race in seventh, as Furusato outdragged Almansa to the finish in eighth. Matteo Bertelle completed the top 10.
The next pack of riders were over 10 seconds behind Bertelle, led by Kiwi Cormac Buchanan in 11th.
Guido Pini took the flag in 12th after prevailing in a fight to the line, while Nicola Carraro in 13th and Scott Ogden in 14th were within a tenth of the Italian.
Stefano Nepa also featured in the last lap battle and completed the points finishers in 15th.
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