Salom prevails in thrilling Moto3 finish at Indianapolis, while Cortese extends points lead as Vinales falls
Luis Salom scored his first Moto3 victory at Indianapolis, prevailing in a thrilling three-way last-lap scrap with championship leaders Sandro Cortese and Maverick Vinales
Cortese (Ajo KTM) finished second but extended his points advantage over Vinales to 29 after the latter fell at the final turn.
It was the Avintia FTR-Honda rider who had made the early move in the race, breaking free of a pack of nine riders and forcing Cortese and Salom (RW Kalex-KTM) to take up the chase.
By the halfway mark the three had moved clear of a chasing group of five riders, swapping positions regularly as the race headed into the final stages.
Going into the last lap there was less than half a second to choose between the trio, with Cortese heading Vinales and Salom.
That all changed down the back straight, when Vinales got an excellent tow and dived down the inside - only to find Salom had done the same to him and jumped from third to first in an excellent move.
Cortese tried to respond but ran slightly wide hounding Salom and Vinales dived back down the inside, with the trio remaining locked together until the final turn when Vinales ran wide and lost the front of his bike.
Salom hung on to claim his first win in Moto3, 0.056 seconds ahead of Cortese, while Aspar's Jonas Folger inherited third, just over two seconds down the road.
Miguel Oliviera, Romano Fenati, Zulfahmi Khairuddin and Alex Rins all finished within eight seconds of the lead, having been part of the earlier nine-bike battle for first.
Results - 23 laps:
Pos Rider Team/Bike Time/Gap
1. Luis Salom RW Kalex-KTM 42m14.300s
2. Sandro Cortese Ajo KTM + 0.056s
3. Jonas Folger Aspar Kalex-KTM + 2.940s
4. Miguel Oliveira Monlau Suter-Honda + 3.067s
5. Romano Fenati Italia FMI FTR-Honda + 3.664s
6. Zulfahmi Khairuddin Ajo KTM + 7.663s
7. Alex Rins Monlau Suter-Honda + 7.697s
8. Jakub Kornfeil Ongetta FTR-Honda + 11.203s
9. Alberto Moncayo Laglisse FTR-Honda + 11.242s
10. Alexis Masbou Caretta Honda + 13.163s
11. Arthur Sissis Ajo KTM + 23.362s
12. Danny Kent Ajo KTM + 24.364s
13. Louis Rossi Germany FTR-Honda + 25.001s
14. Isaac Vinales Ongetta FTR-Honda + 31.211s
15. Alessandro Tonucci Italia FMI FTR-Honda + 34.179s
16. Toni Finsterbusch MZ Honda + 1m12.945s
17. Giulian Pedone Ambrogio Suter-Honda + 1m14.428s
18. Kenta Fujii Technomag-CIP TSR-Honda + 1m14.709s
19. Armando Pontone Ioda + 1m15.326s
20. Riccardo Moretti Mahindra + 1 lap
Retirements:
Maverick Vinales Avintia FTR-Honda 22 laps
Alan Techer Technomag-CIP TSR-Honda 15 laps
Efren Vazquez Laglisse FTR-Honda 11 laps
Luigi Morciano Ioda Italia 10 laps
Alex Marquez Ambrogio Suter-Honda 6 laps
Brad Binder RW Kalex-KTM 3 laps
Adrian Martin Laglisse FTR-Honda 0 laps
Jasper Iwema FGR Honda 0 laps
Niccolo Antonelli Gresini FTR-Honda 0 laps
Niklas Ajo TT Motion KTM DSQ
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