Celestino Vietti fought hard with Pedro Acosta to take his first win in Moto2 since the Catalan GP in 2022. Ai Ogura completed the podium with championship contender Tony Arbolino crossing the line in sixth place.
The race started strongly for Ogura after making a fantastic start, but this was overshadowed by Jake Dixon who slotted himself into second place when the pack reached turn one. Dixon attempted to continue his rise up the field by looking to overtake Acosta but was unable to do so.
Arbolino was able to make his way to fourth place and Vietti dropped to fifth place. On the second lap, Arbolino ran wide at the chicane and Vietti was able to get past him.
At turn three on lap three, there was a crash between Sam Lowes and Darryn Binder which resulted in the South African rider being taken to the medical centre and being declared unfit due to fractured vertebrae.
Acosta started to pull away from Dixon and Ogura at the front of the field, extending his lead to around one second and was setting consistent fastest laps with no pressure from the riders behind him.
Both Alonso Lopez and Albert Arenas crashed on the fifth lap at turns two and three respectively. On the same lap, Ogura was able to get past Dixon to take second place.
Acosta was able to increase his lead to Ogura and Dixon to almost two seconds due to the pair fighting each other over second place. Ogura made a mistake on lap seven to allow Dixon to get past him at turn three, but the Japanese rider was able to get back at him at the next corner. Vietti joined the fighting pair in the hunt to catch Acosta.
Manuel Gonzalez crashed at the third corner on lap eight causing a yellow flag in that sector.
With Dixon back in third place, Vietti started to look for places to overtake the Brit and was able to into turn one on the ninth lap with the Italian rider taking the inside line. Ogura started to reduce the gap to the leader Acosta, whilst the battle for third occurred behind him.
Somkiat Chantra also caught up to the chasing group by lap ten. On the same lap, Joe Roberts crashed at turn three. The American rider retired on lap thirteen.
Arenas had a second crash at turn six on lap eleven and Aron Canet also crashed on that lap but at turn nine.
By lap thirteen, Vietti was on the back of Ogura and was looking to make a move past the IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia rider and was able to on the straight just before turn four. Ogura tried to make the move back on the Fanatic Racing rider over the start-finish straight but was unable to.
The front tire on Acosta’s bike started to go away from him and he began making mistakes, allowing Vietti to catch up to him. The gap reduced from two seconds to just under half a second. This was not helped by Acosta receiving a track limits warning.
Lap 18 was the lucky lap for Vietti as he was able to get past Acosta to take the lead at turn six. The Italian rider kept Acosta behind him, using the defensive line but Acosta was able to stay on his rear tyre. Vietti and Acosta began to break away from Ogura behind them, creating a three second gap.
By lap 21, Acosta was really struggling with his front tyre and this resulted in a wobble at turn nine and this caused him to lose some time to the leader.
Vietti crossed the line with a 1.5 second lead over Acosta who in turn had a 3.5s gap to Ogura. Dixon finished the race in fourth place with Chantra and Arbolino followed the Brit. Filip Salac had a good race ending it in seventh place, followed by Sergio Garcia, Fermin Aldeguer and Lukas Tulovic who rounded out the top ten.
Feature Image Credit: Joel Cooper Photography LTD
| AUSTRIAN MOTO2 GRAND PRIX, RED BULL RING – RACE RESULTS | |||||
| POS | RIDER | NAT | TEAM | BIKE | TIME |
| 1 | Celestino Vietti | ITA | Fantic Racing | (Kalex) | 36m 25.093s |
| 2 | Pedro Acosta | SPA | Red Bull KTM Ajo | (Kalex) | 36m 26.528s |
| 3 | Ai Ogura | JPN | IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia | (Kalex) | 36m 30.282s |
| 4 | Jake Dixon | GBR | Autosolar GASGAS Aspar Team | (Kalex) | 36m 31.238s |
| 5 | Somkiat Chantra | THA | IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia | (Kalex) | 36m 33.728s |
| 6 | Tony Arbolino | ITA | Elf Marc VDS Racing Team | (Kalex) | 36m 39.147s |
| 7 | Filip Salac | CZE | QJMOTOR Gresini Moto2 | (Kalex) | 36m 39.585s |
| 8 | Sergio Garcia | SPA | Pons Wegow Los40 | (Kalex) | 36m 41.538s |
| 9 | Fermín Aldeguer | SPA | CAG SpeedUp | (Boscoscuro) | 36m 42.271s |
| 10 | Lukas Tulovic | GER | Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP | (Kalex) | 37m 0.454s |
| 11 | Dennis Foggia | ITA | Italtrans Racing Team | (Kalex) | 37m 2.948s |
| 12 | Jeremy Alcoba | SPA | QJMOTOR Gresini Moto2 | (Kalex) | 37m 4.644s |
| 13 | Izan Guevara | SPA | Autosolar GASGAS Aspar Team | (Kalex) | 37m 5.306s |
| 14 | Marcos Ramirez | SPA | OnlyFans American Racing | (Kalex) | 37m 5.503s |
| 15 | Bo Bendsneyder | NED | Pertamina Mandalika SAG Team | (Kalex) | 37m 6.191s |
| 16 | Borja Gomez | SPA | Fantic Racing | (Kalex) | 37m 8.539s |
| 17 | Alberto Surra | ITA | Forward Team | (Forward) | 37m 10.111s |
| 18 | Rory Skinner | GBR | OnlyFans American Racing | (Kalex) | 37m 12.715s |
| 19 | Mattia Rato | ITA | Pertamina Mandalika SAG Team | (Kalex) | 37m 14.954s |
| 20 | Kohta Nozane | JPN | Correos Prepago Yamaha VR46 | (Kalex) | 37m 22.132s |
| 21 | Alonso Lopez | SPA | CAG SpeedUp | (Boscoscuro) | 37m 34.357s |
| 22 | Zonta Vd Goorbergh | NED | Fieten Olie Racing GP | (Kalex) | 37m 35.607s |
| Joe Roberts | USA | Italtrans Racing Team | (Kalex) | DNF | |
| Aron Canet | SPA | Pons Wegow Los40 | (Kalex) | DNF | |
| Albert Arenas | SPA | Red Bull KTM Ajo | (Kalex) | DNF | |
| Manuel Gonzalez | SPA | Correos Prepago Yamaha VR46 | (Kalex) | DNF | |
| Darryn Binder | RSA | Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP | (Kalex) | DNF | |
| Sam Lowes | GBR | Elf Marc VDS Racing Team | (Kalex) | DNF | |