Celestino Vietti celebrates his third win of the season ahead of Aron Canet and Augusto Fernandez – Joe Roberts crashes while leading – Marcel Schrötter finishes fifth
With a manoeuvre on the last lap, Celestino Vietti beat Aron Canet in the Moto2 race in Barcelona to secure his third win of the season. The VR46 rider extended his lead in the World Championship to 16 points. Augusto Fernandez completed the Kalex trio on the podium in third place.
“This has been an incredible weekend. I can’t believe it,” said Vietti after his victory. “At the beginning of the race I had problems because the front tyre got very hot. But I managed the race well. Canet was very fast. Nevertheless, I won in the end. I am very happy.”
At the start Vietti, who started the race from pole position, initially lost positions. In the first corners Jake Dixon went ahead but was then slowed down by Joe Roberts. Canet held third place, followed by Albert Arenas and World Championship leaders Vietti and Ai Ogura. Marcel Schrötter completed the first lap in seventh place.
Roberts takes a commanding lead – and crashes
Roberts was able to open up a small gap in the first few kilometres. Passing Dixon, Canet took up the chase. Vietti lost another position and dropped back to sixth behind Ogura. The same happened to Schrötter, who was caught by Fernandez and was now eighth.
At the front, the field became increasingly separated. After five laps, the top four – Roberts, Canet, Dixon and Arenas – were separated by half a second each. Behind them it was tighter: Vietti, Ogura and Fernandez fought a duel for fifth place, but lost more and more of the gap to Arenas.
The gap was also widening at the front: Roberts took a few tenths off Canet on every lap, so that his lead had grown to over one and a half seconds after eight laps. Just two laps later, Roberts threw away his comfortable lead: he crashed in turn 5 and retired.
He was running away with it until the bike ran away with him @Joerobertsracer‘s race ends here Moto2 CatalanGP pic. twitter.com/MrFRUfrDQU
– MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) June 5, 2022
The lead was taken by Dixon, who had just passed Canet. Arenas, Vietti and Fernandez lined up directly behind. Schrötter followed a little behind in sixth place. In the meantime, he had fought a duel with Ogura, who was only in seventh place and had to let go more and more.
At the beginning of the 13th lap, the lead changed back to Canet, but he could not stay there for long. Vietti was on the move: passing Dixon, he also got the better of Canet on lap 15. But he didn’t let up and regained the lead with five laps to go.
Decision to be made on the final lap
A clear favourite did not emerge yet: Canet, Vietti, Dixon and Fernandez were separated by just half a second. And Schrötter was not far away either. For Arenas, on the other hand, things only went backwards: having fallen back to sixth place, he had to park his bike a few laps before the end of the race.
One less rider to worry about in the final fight @AlbertArenas75 has had to retire Moto2 CatalanGP pic. twitter.com/8SWZ5fkr6r
– MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) June 5, 2022
The decisive manoeuvre in the battle for victory came on the final lap at turn 10, where Vietti squeezed past Canet on the inside. At the finish, only 81 thousandths separated the two. Fernandez beat Dixon to take third place. Schrötter completed the top five in fifth.
Mugello winner Pedro Acosta showed a strong second half of the race and passed Ogura in the end to finish seventh. Lopez was the only non-Kalex rider in the top 10 in eighth place, which was completed by Manuel Gonzalez and Tony Arbolino. The latter had to go through the Long Lap once.
Lorenzo Dalla Porta, Somkiat Chantra, Bo Bendsneyder, Jorge Navarro and Fermin Aldeguer took the rest of the points. A total of 24 riders saw the chequered flag. In addition to Roberts, his compatriot Cameron Beaubier also crashed. Sam Lowes, who was in the top 10, crashed shortly before the end of the race