With 11 laps left to go and with the race for the title well and truly alive, Dalla Porta, Arbolino and Ramirez all knew they had to take advantage of Canet’s misfortune. However, the likes of Arenas, Dennis Foggia (SKY Racing Team VR46), Darryn Binder, Ai Ogura (Honda Team Asia) and his teammate Kaito Toba wanted to take advantage and make names for themselves in the heat of Thailand. Tony Arbolino was the next title contender to suffer bad luck, as he appeared to run wide on the exit of Turn 5, securing his glove back on. Plummeting to 20th, he had work to do.

Two laps later, Binder was sanctioned with a ride through penalty for is instigation of the final corner accident which ended Canet’s hopes of victory. Canet was back out on track but was not on the lead lap. On Lap 7, Ayumu Sasaki (Petronas Sprinta Racing) crashed out of the top ten with a front-end tumble at Turn 1, although he was relatively unscathed.

Just six laps to go and it was a Leopard Racing 1-2, as Lorenzo Dalla Porta led Marcos Ramirez, whilst further down the leading group, Andrea Migno (Mugen Race), who was fastest on Friday, began his surge to the front and was up to fourth at the final corner. The Italian had set his fastest lap of the race too, emphasising his late race pace as he joined the party at the front of the field. Celestino Vietti was also still in the hunt, in sixth place and keeping himself out of trouble and still in with a chance of victory. The top nine were covered by just 1.1 sec as the battle of Buriram intensified and the fastest riders began to edge clear of the rest of the field.