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Le Mans Moto3: Maverick Vinales grabs second win in a row

Maverick Vinales extended his advantage at the top of the Moto3 points with a faultless ride to victory at Le Mans

The championship leader passed Jonas Folger for the lead on lap nine and kept Alex Rins at bay to secure his second win in a row and move 13 points clear in the title fight.

Rins slipped back on the final two laps as Luis Salom harried him for second, but the Monlau KTM just held off the similar Ajo bike.

Folger led the first stage of the race, passing polesitter Vinales around the outside as their fellow front row man Miguel Oliveira dropped back to sixth after a poor getaway.

As the front two swapped places, Oliveira's recovery was short-lived as he crashed his Mahindra at the Dunlop chicane on lap five.

Having shadowed Folger for the first third of the race, Vinales made his move at the start of the ninth lap, slipstreaming the Aspar KTM and taking the lead into the first corner.

Rins then passed Folger for 2nd at the Turn 7 chicane and the German ran straight on, allowing Salom through for 3rd.

Folger's attempts to challenge the established front three looked to be reignited with eight laps to go as he set the fastest lap of the race, but it proved to be a false dawn as he gradually slipped back.

Rins set a new fastest lap as he reeled in Vinales, and hastled him until the penultimate tour when Salom made a late, and ultimately unsuccessful, bid for the second step of the podium.

Folger eventually finished a lonely fourth, 15s behind the leader but even further in front of Alex Marquez and Jakub Kornfeil in fifth and sixth.

A multi-bike scrap for seventh ended when Zulfahmi Khairuddin spectacularly lost control of his Ajo KTM, taking Niklas Ajo's Tecno machine with him.

Results - 24 laps:

Pos Rider                Bike                    Time/Gap
 1. Maverick Vinales     Laglisse KTM            42m05.448s
 2. Alex Rins            Monlau KTM              +1.264s   
 3. Luis Salom           Ajo KTM                 +1.387s   
 4. Jonas Folger         Aspar Kalex-KTM         +14.593s  
 5. Alex Marquez         Monlau KTM              +37.949s  
 6. Jakub Kornfeil       RW Kalex-KTM            +40.295s  
 7. Romano Fenati        Italia FTR-Honda        +43.325s  
 8. Brad Binder          Ambrogio Suter-Honda    +43.537s  
 9. Alexis Masbou        Ongetta FTR-Honda       +45.511s  
10. Isaac Vinales        Ongetta FTR-Honda       +45.674s  
11. John Mcphee          Caretta-RTG FTR-Honda   +51.452s  
12. Jack Miller          Caretta-RTG FTR-Honda   +51.592s  
13. Arthur Sissis        Ajo KTM                 +58.713s  
14. Alessandro Tonucci   Tasca Honda             +58.970s  
15. Philipp Oettl        Paddock Kalex-KTM       +1m18.027s
16. Livio Loi            Marc VDS Kalex-KTM      +1m18.384s
17. Matteo Ferrari       Ongetta FTR-Honda       +1m23.388s
18. Toni Finsterbusch    Kiefer Kalex-KTM        +1m27.726s
19. Ana Carrasco         Laglisse KTM            +1m27.754s
20. Francesco Bagnaia    Italia FTR-Honda        +1m27.860s
21. Jasper Iwema         RW Kalex-KTM            +1m28.165s
22. Juanfran Guevara     CIP TSR-Honda           +1m30.631s
23. Alan Techer          CIP TSR-Honda           +1m30.841s
24. Eric Granado         Aspar Kalex-KTM         + 1 lap  
25. Hyuga Watanabe       Tasca Honda             + 1 lap  
26. Christophe Arciero   ARC Suter               + 1 lap  

Retirements:

    Lorenzo Baldassarri  Gresini FTR-Honda       4 laps
    Zulfahmi Khairuddin  Ajo KTM                 5 laps
    Niklas Ajo           Tecno KTM               5 laps
    Jules Danilo         Marc VDS Kalex-KTM      11 laps
    Niccolo Antonelli    Gresini FTR-Honda       12 laps
    Florian Alt          Kiefer Kalex-KTM        18 laps
    Miguel Oliveira      Mahindra                20 laps

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