Canet pips Fenati to Assen Moto3 win
Aron Canet recovered from an early off-track excursion to snatch victory away from Romano Fenati at the final corner of a thrilling Dutch TT, cutting his deficit in the championship to Joan Mir to 30 points.
Canet was in a hard-charging group battling over sixth spot in the early stages when a crash for Gresini rider Fabio Di Giannantonio forced the Spanish rider to run off track at the final corner, dropping him outside of the top 10 and over three seconds away from the leaders.
At the front of the field, home hero Bo Bendsneyder led for the first few laps, and locked horns with Fenati over the course of the fifth lap.
This scrapping allowed championship leader Mir to close right in, the Leopard rider moving to the front of the field on lap five. However, his time at the front was short-lived as pole man Jorge Martin, Bendnseyder and Fenati found a way through on the eighth lap.
By lap 10, Canet had worked his way to the front of the group chasing the leaders and had cut the gap down to 1.8s. Two laps later Canet had tagged onto the back of Adam Norrodin, slipping ahead of the Malaysian into Turn 5.
Canet’s charge had brought Platinum Bay KTM’s Marcos Ramirez along, as well as John McPhee on the British Talent Team Honda, all three taking turns at leading the field in the closing stages.
Mir led across the line to start the final lap, while behind Canet, Fenati and McPhee debated second spot. This had given Mir a little breathing room as he headed into the final sector.
But a mistake from the Spaniard at Turn 11 saw him mugged, Mir dropping to ninth while Fenati moved ahead with Canet and McPhee in tow.
Canet and Fenati ran side-by-side through the fast Turn 15, while McPhee desperately looked for a way past the pair of them. Behind, Norrodin crashed out of eighth place.
Canet muscled ahead of Fenati into the final turn and held the Italian at bay on the run to the line to claim his second win of the season by just 0.035 seconds, with McPhee 0.082s behind in third after starting from 19th.
Martin recovered from contact with Ramirez at Turn 15 a few laps from home to finish fourth, with Jules Danilo taking his best result of the season in fifth ahead of Ramirez and Gabriel Rodrigo, who collided with Bendsneyder on the run to the line.
Bendsneyder did take the chequered flag in 10th, but was soon disqualified as he was not in contact with his motorcycle as it crossed the line.
Twitter: So close yet so far… got to feel for @bobendsneyder at his home race
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Mir was unable to improve on ninth place, while Tatsuki Suzuki was lucky to avoid the Bendsneyder incident to claim eighth. Nicolo Bulega completed the top 10, the Italian almost six seconds adrift.
Philipp Oettl was a further 1.2s behind Bulega in 11th, with Juanfran Guevara, Darryn Binder, Andrea Migno and Ayumu Sasaki taking the last of the points.