GARDNER WINS RACE BUT NOT TITLE

Remy Gardner took victory in Portugal, however fell three points shy of taking the Moto2 Championship as his rival and teammate Raul Fernandez finished the race in second position.

Gardner made a decision to run with a hard rear tyre and it was a decision that paid dividends.

The Australian dropped back to third in the early stages, however with more stability in the rear end late in the race he was able to power through and march to his fifth victory of the season.

At the start of the race Gardner settled in behind his KTM Ajo teammate Fernandez as the pair and VR46 academy rider Marco Bezzecchi gapped the field.

On lap 3 Bezzecchi made his way by Gardner into Turn 1 and would remain that position for several laps.

Now in second, the Italian was unable to close on the leader Fernandez, holding the margin at 1s for several laps until Gardner repassed him.

Replicating the move made to him earlier in the race, Gardner hit back by snatching second place at Turn 1 on lap 9.

In a bid to stick with Gardner, Bezzecchi was pushing hard and nearly flung himself from his Kalex machine at Turn 14.

Bezzecchi conceded defeat and knew he could no longer match the KTM Ajo duo.

Once in second it took Gardner just two laps to close the 1.3s margin down to nothing.

The hard tyre choice was paying dividends, the Aussie was in another league.

On lap 13 in the slipstream, Gardner breezed by Fernandez on the run to Turn 1 and attempted to break away from the Spaniard.

He was unable to do so immediately, on lap 19 of 23 Fernandez was still in range, one slip up from Gardner and Fernandez would be back in front.

On lap 20 Fernandez began to drop off the tail of Gardner, unable to match the relentless pace late on, falling a second behind for the first time.

The #25 rider continued to fall back and in the end was lucky to hold onto second position, with one more lap he may have fallen to third.

Gardner took the win by 3.014s ahead of his teammate Fernandez to record the team’s seventh 1-2 finish of the season.

The Aussie suffered a painful practice crash on Friday however did not let this deter him, powering to victory in what he described as one of his toughest races.

“That’s been one of the hardest races ever,” he expressed post-race. “One of the best races I think I’ve ever done, especially with all that pressure.

“I was pretty clear we were gonna run the hard and that worked out pretty well in the end, but I had to stick in there in the first three quarters of the race just to stay with Raul because he had that soft.

“The other thing between warm up and the race I kind of felt like something moved in my ribs and really was quite sore before I went out to the grid, so it was a tough race pain wise, I don’t know how I did it to be honest.”

Fernandez fell like a rock late on but held onto second from a hard charging Sam Lowes by 0.8s.

Aron Canet was fourth ahead of Cameron Beaubier, Celestino Vietti, Jorge Navarro and Bezzecchi.

In the final race at Valencia this Sunday Gardner only have to finish 13th or better to win the title.

For more of the latest MotoGP news pick up the current issue of Auto Action. Also make sure you follow us on social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or our weekly email newsletter for all the latest updates between issues.