Italian Marco Bezzecchi dominated today’s Moto3 race run in sketchy conditions at the Argentine MotoGP round as a slick-tyre gamble from Jorge Martin failed to pay off.
Bezzecchi, who is a Valentino Rossi protege, stayed on wet tyres despite a drying track to open a 2.3s gap in three laps as poleman Tony Arbolino’s slick-tyre option proved to be an error and he scythed his way backwards to 19th on lap one.
Martin, who lost the championship lead, came into pitlane along with Philipp Oettel after the warm-up to change to slick believing the track was drying but it stayed too wet too long and even though he was able to lap two seconds quicker than the leaders, the 53s he lost on the first lap proved a gap too far.
Bezzecchi was never challenged for top spot and took his maiden win by more than six seconds while the podium places were between Aron Canet, Fabio Digiannantonio and Jaume Masia. Masia lobbed it with only two laps left, when he tagged the rear of the Italian.
This left Canet fighting for second place with Digiannantonio which he took by three-tenths. Enea Bastiannini finished in fourth, eight-tenths behind the podium men.
Martin grabbed a handful of points in 11th place, one behind Arbolino with Britain’s John McPhee down in 17th place.
Last-placed man Makar Yurchenko survived a crash and a trip to pitlane to set the fastest lap of the race when he changed to slicks.
Canet now leads the championship by 10 points ahead of Martin with Bezzeccho leaping to third.
