The Japanese rider just pips his teammate to take the Championship lead by a single point after a spectacular showdown in Austria.
Ai Ogura (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) and teammate Somkiat Chantra put on quite a show at the Red Bull Ring. Escaping together in a duel at the front, Ogura led for much of the race before a last lap attack from his teammate, but the Japanese rider was able to fight back and take his second Grand Prix win. With it, he also takes the Championship lead. Chantra returns to the podium after proving the protagonist of a classic, with Jake Dixon (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team) completing the rostrum to make it three in a row.
Ogura nabbed the holeshot as Alonso Lopez (CAG Speed Up) wrested second from Augusto Fernandez (Red Bull KTM Ajo) at Turn 2a. Fernandez came under further attack in the opening stages, shuffled all the way back to eighth when Aron Canet (Flexbox HP40) went past at Turn 3 on Lap 2. Ahead, Chantra ran in third, from Dixon, Acosta, and Celestino Vietti (Mooney VR46 Racing Team).
Lopez overtook Ogura for the lead later that lap at Turn 9, but handed it back when he ran wide on Lap 4 at Turn 4. The Spaniard also ceded second exactly two laps later when Chantra came in hot under brakes, making brief contact on his way through. Meanwhile, Vietti had taken fifth from Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Ajo).
On Lap 7, Dixon ran long at both Turns 3 and 4, dropping all the way back to eighth and promoting Fernandez back to seventh. The Briton’s first ‘moment’ also gave Vietti a look at Lopez, but those two drifted to 1.5 seconds behind the leading Honda Team Asia duo before the VR46 took over as the rider on the chase.
Acosta passed Lopez for fourth on Lap 13 but when they both had messy runs through the chicane on Lap 14, bottling up the pack, Fernandez capitalised with a double pass up the hill at Turn 3 to take up fifth ahead of Canet, Dixon, and Lopez. However, the KTM Ajo rider lost that spot to Canet on Lap 15 and was back to seventh when Dixon made a move at the chicane on Lap 16.
Meanwhile, Vietti had been racking up fastest laps to catch up to second-placed Chantra. He looked likely to go past eventually until disaster struck on lap 17, when he crashed at Turn 3. The incident handed Chantra a five-second buffer over third place and while Vietti remounted, last of the 26 still running, he would eventually retreat to pit lane and retire.
With Ogura first and Fernandez sixth after the Vietti crash, the race leader was in the live World Championship lead by two points. While Chantra was latched onto his rear wheel with more than half a dozen laps to go, the world waited to see if he’d attack…
Whether he saw “P2 OK” on the pitboard or not, Chantra decided to go for it. On the final lap at Turn 9, the Thai rider struck and made it through cleanly enough. But Ogura is Ogura, as Chantra is Chantra, and the Japanese rider sliced straight back through to take the win and the Championship lead by a single point.
Dixon and Fernandez had got back up to fourth and by the time they started the last lap, but the former was not done yet. Dixon made one unsuccessful attempt to pass Acosta midway through the final lap, but then got the job done at Turn 10 to snatch the final podium place.
For Acosta, fourth was still a commendable result in his comeback race, while Fernandez’s Lap 24 overtake of Canet means he is only a point behind Ogura with seven races left this season. Canet did take sixth, with the top 10 rounded out by Lopez, Marcel Schrötter (Liqui Moly Intact GP), Albert Arenas (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team), and Jeremy Alcoba (Liqui Moly Intact GP).
The rest of the points finishers in 11th through 15th respectively were Jorge Navarro (Flexbox HP40), Barry Baltus (RW Racing GP), Cameron Beaubier (American Racing), Joe Roberts (Italtrans Racing Team), and Bo Bendsneyder (Pertamina Mandalika SAG Team), while Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Italtrans Racing Team) and Tony Arbolino (Elf Marc VDS Racing Team) were among the nine DNFs. They had been eighth and ninth when Dalla Porta was slow off Turn 3 on Lap 18 and Arbolino, with nowhere to go, crashed into him. As for Vietti, he is still third in the standings, but now 27 points off top spot… tune in for another twist at San Marino!
Moto2™ PODIUM
1 Ai Ogura (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) – Kalex – 39’07.133
2 Somkiat Chantra (Idemitsu Honda Team Asia) – Kalex – +0.173
3 Jake Dixon (Zinia GASGAS Aspar Team) – Kalex – +7.854
Ai Ogura: “It’s amazing, incredible. Almost all the race, I was leading, and I knew that my pace was good but I knew that Somkiat was there behind me all the race. On the last lap, to be honest, I didn’t expect it, but he tried. It wasn’t nice to be attacked but overall it was fantastic and I could finish P1 so I am very happy. That was a big day for me and for my team!”
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