McPhee chose Turn 3 to overtake former teammate Sasaki with six laps to go, and on the same lap, was the first rider dip into the 1:52s. McPhee had Rossi and a podium in his sights but at Turn 8, the number 17 was wide. Sasaki wasn’t close enough to dive back through and with four to go, the gap was 2.5s between Rossi and McPhee. At the front, Salac set his personal best lap of the race to keep the pressure on Garcia, the gap sitting at 1.5s with three to go.

Two to go at Le Mans, Garcia’s lead was 1.3s over Salac. In the fight for the final podium spot, McPhee was closing Rossi down and the gap was down to just over a second – this was going to the wire. Garcia set a personal best time on the penultimate lap and his lead was two seconds heading onto the final lap, McPhee was 1.1s quicker than Rossi and the race for the final rostrum place was well and truly on.

Rossi was responding, his margin was up to a second, but what a ride from the race winner Garcia. No mistakes were made in the latter half of the race and Garcia rounded the final corner to win his second Moto3™ race, Salac ended the race 2.3s off in second to brilliantly take his maiden World Championship rostrum. Rossi set the fastest lap of the race on the final lap to fend off a hard-charging McPhee to also stand on a Grand Prix rostrum for the first time, a fantastic job from the Italian whose previous best result was P11. For McPhee, P4 is a much-needed result after a pointless start to 2021, and Sasaki was visibly happy with his P5 coming over the line.

Rookies Fernandez and Artigas produced brilliant rides to come home in P5 and P6, that’s Fernandez’s best result of the season. After crashing and starting 21st, P8 for Acosta is yet another sensational effort. With a few of his rivals crashing, Acosta’s World Championship lead is up to 54 points after five races – unreal. Deniz Öncü (Red Bull KTM Tech3) had some stunning late-race pace and managed to climb his way up to P9 from P15, ahead of Romano Fenati (Sterilgarda Max Racing Team) in P10.

Migno didn’t have the pace of the leaders in tricky conditions and slipped to P11, just ahead of CarXpert PrüstelGP’s Ryusei Yamanaka and Jason Dupasquier. Reigning FIM CEV Repsol Moto3™ Junior World Champion Izan Guevara (Gaviota GASGAS Aspar Team), with Andi Izdihar (Honda Team Asia) taking the final point in P15.

It may not have been the normal Moto3™ thriller that we’re used to seeing, but it was another enthralling and dramatic encounter in the lightweight class. Garcia’s win moves him up to P2 in the standings, the Spaniard now sits as Acosta’s closest challenger as the field now look forward to a date with Mugello next time out.

Top 10:
1. Sergio Garcia (Gaviota GASGAS Aspar Team)
2. Filip Salac (Rivacold Snipers Team) + 2.349
3. Riccardo Rossi (BOE Owlride) + 5.589
4. John McPhee (Petronas Sprinta Racing) + 7.158
5. Ayumu Sasaki (Red Bull KTM Tech3) + 14.882
6. Adrian Fernandez (Sterilgarda Max Racing Team) + 27.279
7. Xavier Artigas (Leopard Racing) + 27.408
8. Pedro Acosta (Red Bull KTM Ajo) + 29.880
9. Deniz Öncü (Red Bull KTM Tech3) + 35.098
10. Romano Fenati (Sterilgarda Max Racing Team) + 36.616.

SHARK GRAND PRIX DE FRANCE

Moto3 Race Classification 2021.

Moto3 World Standing 2021