Albert Arenas held off John McPhee to win the opening round of the 2020 Moto3 world championship in Qatar by just 0.053.
Arenas led the vast majority of the race after demoting pole-man Tatsuki Suzuki on lap two, holding the advantage exclusively just prior to mid-distance.
The Aspar man made sure to remain in and around the top five though, crucially manoeuvring himself into the lead at Turn 1 as the final lap got underway.
He immediately pulled the pin, dragging Petronas SRT pilot McPhee with him as the duo left Jaume Masia and the chasing pack behind.
McPhee looked set to challenge Arenas in the final half of the lap, but lost too much time to Arenas on the exit of the final turn-allowing him to cruise home just ahead of McPhee’s Honda.
Masia managed to hang on to the final position on the rostrum for Leopard Racing across the final tour, but drops to fourth after collecting a track limits infringement, Ai Ogura therefore taking third ahead of Masia.
Suzuki bagged fifth despite finishing seventh on the road as both Gabriel Rodrigo and Jeremy Alcoba ahead were dropped a position each for their own track limit transgressions, leaving the pair sixth and seventh behind the SIC58 man.
Filip Salac enjoyed a solid outing to claim eighth for Snipers, while Raul Fernandez struggled to hang onto a leading position in the closing stages after looking the man to beat for most of the weekend, slipping to ninth just clear of Dennis Foggia.
Fernandez was then dropped to tenth as the final rider to fall foul of the track limits, Foggia bumped up to ninth with Fernandez tenth.
Darryn Binder looked firmly in the hunt for a maiden Moto3 victory as the race entered its twilight stages, the South African looking good to snatch the lead into Turn 1 around the outside.
He was clipped by Tony Arbolino though, the CIP man going down hard and retiring from the race as a result. Arbolino managed to continue, but lost significant ground and eventually took the chequered flag 14th, before being demoted a further spot to 15th as he himself picked up a track limits penalty.
Celestino Vietti was another expected front-runner to hit problems, the VR46 racer crashing at Turn 10 around mid-distance-the Italian failing to score points a s a result.
