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Aragon Moto3: Luis Salom beats Sandro Cortese, Maverick Vinales non-starts

Luis Salom edged out Sandro Cortese and Jonas Folger to claim his second Moto3 victory in a frantic race at Aragon

Second was enough to move Cortese into a near-unassailable position in the championship, after his closest rival Maverick Vinales' Avintia FTR-Honda suffered a seized engine on the warm-up lap and was unable to compete.

Cortese tried to take full advantage of his absence and several times hit the front and attempted to lift the pace, but he was not able to break free from a lead pack that never consisted of less than seven riders and was rarely separated by more than one second.

The result was a constantly changing order, with positions changing ceaselessly throughout the 20-lap contest.

With two laps to run Salom hit the front for the first time, while Cortese suddenly found himself bumped down to fifth, having led for much of the middle section.

The German fought back and on the final lap cut by Salom to retake the lead, only to get demoted once more, with Jonas Folger (Aspar Kalex KTM) also coming by into second.

Ultimately that proved too much to overcome, and while Cortese picked off Folger on the back straight, where the KTM proved mighty, he was not able to bridge back to Salom before the chequered flag fell.

Folger took third ahead of Cortese's team-mate Danny Kent, who moved from eighth to first in the space of one lap just after the race's halfway mark.

Kent lost touch with the lead trio while duelling with Efren Vazquez in the final laps, but despite being run wide by the Spaniard was able to hang on to claim fourth.

Vazquez sealed fifth, while Louis Rossi - another rider who enjoyed a spell at the front - split Monlau Honda team-mates Alex Rins and Miguel Oliveira, who finished sixth and eighth respectively.

Zulfahmi Khairuddin also led in the early stages, but dropped to the back of the front pack as the race wore on and then crashed out with six laps to run.

Results - 20 laps:

Pos  Rider                   Team/Bike                   Time/Gap
 1.  Luis Salom              RW Kalex-KTM              40m56.391s
 2.  Sandro Cortese          Ajo KTM                     + 0.155s
 3.  Jonas Folger            Aspar Kalex-KTM             + 0.362s
 4.  Danny Kent              Ajo KTM                     + 1.115s
 5.  Efren Vazquez           Laglisse FTR-Honda          + 1.160s
 6.  Alex Rins               Monlau Suter-Honda          + 1.765s
 7.  Louis Rossi             Germany FTR-Honda           + 1.839s
 8.  Miguel Oliveira         Monlau Suter-Honda          + 1.972s
 9.  Arthur Sissis           Ajo KTM                     + 2.415s
10.  Niccolo Antonelli       Gresini FTR-Honda           + 2.587s
11.  Jakub Kornfeil          Ongetta FTR-Honda           + 2.845s
12.  Alessandro Tonucci      Italia FMI FTR-Honda        + 3.067s
13.  Alberto Moncayo         Laglisse FTR-Honda          + 3.763s
14.  Niklas Ajo              TT Motion KTM              + 14.899s
15.  Alex Marquez            Ambrogio Suter-Honda       + 15.041s
16.  Brad Binder             RW Kalex-KTM               + 36.470s
17.  Isaac Vinales           Ongetta FTR-Honda          + 37.422s
18.  Toni Finsterbusch       Germany Honda              + 37.457s
19.  Jack Miller             Caretta Honda              + 38.312s
20.  Luca Amato              Aspar Kalex-KTM            + 40.831s
21.  Alan Techer             Technomag-CIP TSR-Honda    + 40.849s
22.  John McPhee             Caretta KRP Honda          + 41.879s
23.  Giulian Pedone          Ambrogio Suter-Honda       + 42.044s
24.  Juan Francisco Guevara  Wild Wolf BST FTR-Honda    + 55.896s
25.  Danny Webb              Mahindra                 + 1m02.687s
26.  Kenta Fujii             Technomag-CIP TSR-Honda  + 1m18.055s
27.  Armando Pontone         Ioda                     + 1m18.374s

Retirements:

     Adrian Martin           Laglisse FTR-Honda           17 laps
     Miroslav Popov          Mahindra                     16 laps
     Zulfahmi Khairuddin     Ajo KTM                      14 laps
     Romano Fenati           Italia FMI FTR-Honda          9 laps
     Jorge Navarro           Larresport Honda               1 lap
     Jasper Iwema            FGR-Honda                      1 lap
     Maverick Vinales        Avintia FTR-Honda             0 laps

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