Sky Racing VR46 man Luca Marini produced a faultless display to secure his first Moto2 win of 2019 as World Championship leader Alex Marquez ticked off another race without any major damage, extending his lead in the World Championship in Buriram.
Starting from fourth place, Marini wasted little time in working his way to the front, passing both Tetsuta Nagashima and Alex Marquez on the second lap to get out front. Once the Italian had the lead, he slowly edged away from the chasing pack, not putting a foot wrong, to take his second career Moto2 win.
Behind the Italian there was a four-way battle for the lesser two podium spots which eventually saw the KTM duo of Brad Binder and Iker Lecuona get the better of Augusto Fernandez and Alex Marquez.
Marquez had been sat in second for large portions of the race, not putting a foot wrong in the face of some immense pressure from Lecuona, however, once the KTM man got ahead of his compatriot, Marquez wasn’t able to fight back and slowly but surely Binder and Fernandez followed through, and despite his best efforts, the World Championship leader decided to live and fight for another day.
Back ahead of Marquez, Lecuona was coming under severe pressure from Binder, with Fernandez lurking not too far behind. Lecuona held Binder, until the final corner of the race when the South African out dragged and rode around the outside of Lecuona. It was almost tears when Lecuona lit the rear end of his KTM up, almost shooting himself over the handlebars, but thankfully he controlled the slide enough to take his second career podium in third place.
Jorge Martin backed his front row start up with a sixth-place finish, with Tom Luthi and Nico Bulega in eighth and ninth respectively. Hometown hero Somkiat Chantra was ninth in front of his adoring fans, with Marco Bezzecchi rounding out the top ten.
Enea Bastiniani was eleventh, ahead of Remy Gardener who will be disappointed in twelfth. Andrea Locatelli was thirteenth with the returning Marcel Schrotter in fourteenth with Nagashima rounding out the point scorers.
