Moto3 championship leader Joan Mir pipped title rival Romano Fenati for the win at the Sachsenring MotoGP round and extended his advantage to 237 points in the title chase after poleman Aron Canet crashed out.
Mir, Fenati and Marcos Ramirez with Tony Arbolino and Nico Bulega broke away from the pack and quickly opened a substantial gap, as Canet - who had been second in the points table - plummeted down the order to 13th before going down at turn 12 with 11 laps left to run.
A late crash at turn two from Arbolino gave Bulega a certain fourth place but the SKY VR46 rider just didn’t have the pace to run with the front three as they slowly edged away.
Fenati was the only rider in the field to gamble on the medium tyre and its expected drop after eight laps with everyone else opting for the hard but he was able to make it last and tried to make a break with seven laps left to go.
Mir was having none of it and re-took the lead a lap later as Ramirez adopted a watching brief. With four to run, Ramirez stuck the Platinum Bay KTM into the lead but Mir came straight back at turn 12 after the plunge down the hill.
Fenati pushed back to second with two left and then took the lead into turn one on the last lap. The edge grip from the medium tyre enabled him to open a four-tenth gap in the first two sectors but Mir caught him and went past on the brakes into turn 12, leaving Fenati no room to come back into the final corner.
He crossed the line with a one-tenth advantage with Ramirez bagging his first-ever podium spot. Bulega had a lonely ride to fourth with Philipp Oettl equally on his own in fifth after pulling away from the main pack.
Enea Bastiannini found pace late on to end in sixth with Livio Loi in seventh place. Bo Bendsneyder, Tatsuki Suzuki and Darryn Binder completed the top ten. John McPhee crashed out with 20 laps left and Danny Kent joined him in the kitty litter eight laps later.
