Britain’s Danny Kent has extended his lead in the Moto3 championship chase with a second-place finish at Mugello’s MotoGP round this morning, finishing behind Miguel Oliviera who became Portugal’s first-ever Grand Prix winner.
Kent started brightly and led into the first corner but a pack of 16 riders were battling for the lead early doors. Kent played a waiting game and was as far back as 15th pace with 12 laps to go.
He slowly made his way forward, picking off riders with sensible passes to grab second place with four laps to go. Francesco Bagnaia pushed him back to third a lap later, and then after missing a tow along the start/finish straight, Ken found himself eighth into turn one on the penultimate lap.
On the final lap, the Leopard Honda man grabbed his favourite inside line past the pits and was late on the brakes to take third and was second after dropping a place halfway around. On the run to the line, he just didn’t have the pace to slipstream Oliveira, who took the flag by 0.071s.
Romano Fenati was a further 0.056s back for the final podium spot which he beat Bagnaia to by 0.003s. Enea Bastianini, who is second in the championship table, was fifth and 0.070s further back.
Kent’s title rivals Efren Vasquez and Fabio Quartararo both crashed out while Scotland’s John McPhee ended a tough weekend in 20th place.
