Two to go. Fernandez was faster than the three behind him and the gap was back up to 1.7, it looked like the MotorLand podium man had this in the bag. Last lap time and the lead was 1.4 seconds as Arbolino had a huge twitch at Turn 1, Garcia was up the inside of the Italian and into P2. Garcia had nothing to lose, Arbolino and Ogura had everything to lose. Ogura picked Arbolino’s pocket at Turn 6 and Arbolino was now off the podium. Garcia had broken the two title contenders and the gap was down to a second, but it was too little too late.

Ogura went defensive at the final corner to cover Arbolino – and it worked. The chequered flag came out and fantastic Fernandez crossed the line to take his first Grand Prix victory by 0.7 seconds over Garcia. Ogura returned to the podium for the first time since the Emilia Romagna GP and in doing so, closes the gap to Arenas to just three points with three to play. Arbolino was second heading onto the last lap but ends P4, the Italian is now 23 points from the top of the Championship – a good day for all the top four.

Binder dropped off the podium battle and eventually took P5 – but only just. Tatay was just 0.032 off the South African as the 2019 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup Champion claims his best Moto3™ result. Interestingly, the gap between the top five in Valencia was 13.392 seconds, whereas if you add together the gap between the top five in every races of 2020, the total is 6.845 seconds – an unusual but riveting lightweight class race.