British Moto3: Fenati fends off Antonelli to secure comfortable win

Topping every practice session and taking pole, Fenati has been in imperious form throughout the Silverstone weekend and capped it off with his 13th career Moto3 victory.

Fenati transformed pole position into the holeshot off the line, while Antonelli boldly carved through into second from fifth on the grid into the start of the Maggotts/Becketts complex.

At the back of the field, championship protagonists Acosta and Sergio Garcia had recovered from the penultimate row of the grid to 16th and 17th.

After just two laps there was already a clear breakaway leading group, with Fenati heading Antonelli, Snipers Honda’s Andrea Migno, with BOE Owlride’s Riccardo Rossi just dropping touch in fourth.

By lap three Rossi had been properly cast adrift of the leading trio, with Rossi dropping into the clutches of the group behind headed by the Leopard Honda of Dennis Foggia.

Acosta and Garcia had worked their way into the points by the second lap, but hopes of either Ajo KTM rider or the Aspar GasGas of Garcia salvaging a podium were quickly dashed as the pair went to war over the next few laps.

Sergio Garcia, Aspar Team Moto3

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

This allowed the rest of the field to disappear up the road while the battle for 10th swelled to 10 riders as the race wore on.

At the front, Migno’s race came to a cruel end when his Honda expired at the Abbey right-hander at the start of lap six.

This put almost three seconds between Fenati and Antonelli and the pack behind, with that gap continuing to grow over the next few laps.

Antonelli kept his Avintia KTM right in the wheel tracks of Fenati’s Max Racing Husqvarna, but the door was kept firmly closed to any overtakes.

As the race entered the final three of its 17 laps, Fenati opened up a gap of over half a second as he pulled the pin.

Fenati extended his lead to over a second to start the final lap and eased to the chequered flag to claim his first victory since the 2020 Emilia Romagna GP to complete a weekend of total domination at Silverstone.

As Fenati pulled away in the lead, Antonelli started to quickly drop into the clutches of Aspar’s Izan Guevara and Foggia, the gap under a second on the final lap.

But Foggia and Guevara battled too hard to reel in Antonelli, leaving the Italian to claim second just two weeks after fracturing his wrist in Austria, while Foggia pipped rookie Guevara for the final podium spot.

Tatsuki Suzuki completed the top five on the SIC58 Honda ahead of Ajo KTM’s Jaume Masia and Petronas Sprinta’s Darryn Binder.

The final top 10 spots were claimed by Tech3 KTM’s Deniz Oncu, Rossi and the sister Avintia KTM of Carlos Tatay, while Acosta was promoted to 11th after Petronas Sprinta’s John McPhee was docked a spot for exceeding track limits on the final lap.

Crucially, however, his nearest title rival Garcia failed to score points after missing out in 16th.

This has pushed Acosta’s championship lead back up to 46 points over Garcia, while Fenati has closed in slightly to 69 points adrift.

British Moto3 race results - 17 laps

Cla	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	Romano Fenati	Husqvarna	-
2	Niccolo Antonelli	KTM	1.679	1.679
3	Dennis Foggia	Honda	2.107	2.107
4	Izan Guevara	GASGAS	2.154	2.154
5	Tatsuki Suzuki	Honda	7.475	7.475
6	Jaume Masia	KTM	7.541	7.541
7	Darryn Binder	Honda	7.559	7.559
8	Deniz Öncü	KTM	14.523	14.523
9	Riccardo Rossi	KTM	14.541	14.541
10	Carlos Tatay	KTM	20.503	20.503
11	Pedro Acosta	KTM	21.898	21.898
12	John McPhee	Honda	21.859	21.859
13	Ayumu Sasaki	KTM	22.028	22.028
14	Filip Salač	KTM	22.107	22.107
15	Gabriel Rodrigo	Honda	22.157	22.157
16	Sergio García	GASGAS	22.444	22.444
17	Stefano Nepa	KTM	22.331	22.331
18	Xavier Artigas	Honda	22.580	22.580
19	Adrian Fernandez	Husqvarna	25.215	25.215
20	Alberto Surra	Honda	27.518	27.518
21	Jeremy Alcoba	Honda	32.821	32.821
22	Lorenzo Fellon	Honda	33.015	33.015
23	Ryusei Yamanaka	KTM	33.310	33.310
24	Yuki Kunii	Honda	52.820	52.820
25	Maximilian Kofler	KTM	52.858	52.858
	Andrea Migno	Honda
	Kaito Toba	KTM
View full results