Moto2: Raul Fernandez holds off Ogura for Austrian win, Gardner 7th

The 10th round of the 2021 Moto2 World Championship, the Austrian Grand Prix, saw the series return to the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg for the second time in the space of a week. Sam Lowes started from pole position.

It was Lowes who made the perfect start, taking the holeshot into turn one ahead of Raul Fernandez. The Briton led the opening lap, too, leading a breakaway group of four, with Raul Fernandez, Ai Ogura and Augusto Fernandez in tow. 

Raul Fernandez, though, took the lead from Lowes on lap two, and was followed through soon after by Ogura and Augusto Fernandez.  

The front four stayed relatively together, though, and throughout the race extended their advantage to those behind. Among them, it became eventually clear in the closing stages of the race that the victory would be decided between Raul Fernandez and Ogura, who just had slightly more than the Marc VDS pairing behind them. 

Both Fernandez and Ogura were as close to perfect as you are likely to get in a motorcycle race, but the Spaniard slightly closer than his Japanese rival in the end, as he was able to break the #79 in the last two laps. 

To say Raul Fernandez led all but one lap of the Austrian Grand Prix makes it sound as though the victory was comfortable. On the contrary, he was under constant pressure from fellow rookie Ogura, who like Fernandez made minimal errors. But in the end it was victory for Fernandez and the 25 points that came with it allowed him to significantly reduce his deficit to teammate Remy Gardner in the championship. 

Second place for Ogura represented a well-deserved first podium in the Moto2 class, although the Japanese is still without a race win in Grand Prix racing. Joining himself and Raul Fernandez on the podium was Augusto Fernandez, who was able to hold on ahead of Sam Lowes in a similar fashion to the way the race winner held on from Ogura. 

Lowes had picked the hard option tyre, which was the race option from last week, compared to almost everyone else who picked the new-for-this-weekend soft option. The only other rider to pick the hard was Marco Bezzecchi, last week’s race winner, who struggled to 10th. By comparison, Lowes’ fourth place is quite impressive, especially on a track which he admits is not his best. The #22 seems to have rediscovered his form, but it is almost certainly too late for his championship hopes.

Celestino Vietti took a career best Moto2 finish last weekend with sixth, and he equaled that this weekend. He crossed the line fifth, but during his battle with Somkiat Chantra had exceeded track limits on the final lap, and so their positions were swapped. Sixth place for Chantra would have been his best result, regardless, but instead he gets a maiden top five.

It was a disappointing day for Remy Gardner, who finished only seventh. He was able to beat Bezzecchi, and extend his points lead over the Italian as a result, but dropped 16 points to his closest championship rival, race winner Raul Fernandez. Gardner’s advantage over his teammate is now 19 points ahead of the British Grand Prix in a couple of weeks. 

Aron Canet finished eighth, a disappointing result after his podium one week ago. The Spaniard finished ahead of Tom Luthi, who had his best finish, ninth place, of the season, coming home ahead 10th-placed Bezzecchi. 

Jake Dixon finished 11th, which is perhaps not the best advertisement to his Petronas SRT squad who have been supposedly thinking of using the Briton to replace Franco Morbidelli in the MotoGP class at Silverstone, should Cal Crutchlow be called upon to replace Maverick Vinales in the factory Yamaha team. Dixon was ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio, Tony Arbolino, Xavi Vierge and Hector Garzo who completed the points. 

Joe Roberts recovered to 16th after being caught up in a first corner incident; the American finishing ahead of Bo Bendsneyder, Hafizh Syahrin, and Simone Corsi.

Cameron Beaubier, who set off the aforementioned first corner incident in which Roberts was caught and received two long lap penalties for his trouble, finished 20th, ahead of the wildcard at the SAG team for this weekend, Taiga Hada in 21st. Nicolo Bulega was 22nd, ahead of Marcel Schrotter, who crashed out of fifth place but remounted on his 200th Grand Prix start; while Stefano Manzi got back on after also being caught up in the first turn incident with Roberts and Beaubier, and finished last of the 23 classified finishers. 

Jorge Navarro went down on the first lap, in the first turn crash. The Spaniard retired on the spot. His teammate at Speed UP, Yari Montella, was also involved, but got back on only to crash out 10 laps from the end. Albert Arenas crashed out on lap two; Lorenzo Dalla Porta on lap six, Barry Baltus on lap 11 and Marcos Ramirez on lap 14.