Brad Binder held Joan Mir at bay to take Moto2 Australian Grand Prix victory by just 0.036 seconds, while title rivals Miguel Oliveira and Francesco Bagnaia were 11th and 12th.
Ajo KTM's Binder ran in the lead group for the entirety of the 25-lap race, keeping the lead he seized late on despite a small moment rounding the final corner to secure his third win of the year.
Poleman Mattia Pasini took the holeshot into the Doohan corner off the line, while Dominique Aegerter slotted in behind in second, while title rivals Bagnaia and Oliveira found themselves in seventh and 13th.
Vierge carved past Pasini at the Honda hairpin, with the Italtrans rider retaliating at the Southern Loop at the beginning of the second tour.
Pasini's hopes of victory were dashed moments later, however, when he went down exiting the Honda hairpin just as Vierge retook the lead from him.
Bagnaia now ran fifth on lap two, with Oliveira 11th, though the Sky VR46 rider soon found the KTM man carving past into Doohan for ninth at the start of the fourth tour.
Binder now held the lead from Vierge, though it would soon be Aegerter who led the charge against the South African after Iker Lecuona unsuccessfully threw his CGBM Evolution KTM up the inside of Intact's Vierge at Southern Loop and crashed.
Vierge soon recovered, and by lap 12 had taken the lead away from Binder, while home favourite Remy Gardner crashed out of the victory hunt from sixth a tour later.
Championship fighters Bagnaia and Oliveira gradually dropped out of the top 10, with the latter holding 12th over Bagnaia as the race entered its closing stages.
Pons' Lorenzo Baldassarri hit the front for the first time with seven laps remaining after swooping through on Vierge at Doohan, and retook the position a tour later at Honda when Binder ran wide attempting to move ahead of Vierge.
Vierge took the lead from Baldassarri at the start of lap 22, with the latter's race lasting just nine more turns before crashing at MG corner, while Binder moved ahead of Vierge at the start of the penultimate tour.
Mir muscled past Vierge and hounded Binder across the final lap, but the Marc VDS rider was unable to capitalise on a small moment for Binder and was denied a debut win by just 0.036s.
Vierge battled Agusto Fernandez [Pons] to claim the final podium spot, while Luca Marini was top VR46 runner home in fifth from Kiefer Racing's Aegerter, Alex Marquez [Marc VDS] and Jesko Raffin [SAG], while Marcel Schrotter recovered from last on the grid after his Intact bike shut down on the grid to finish ninth.
The top 10 was completed by Fabio Quartararo on the Speed Up machine, while 11th for Oliveira sees him take just a point out of Bagnaia, with the Italian's lead standing at 36 heading to Malaysia next week.
Tetsuta Nagashima [Honda Team Asia], Sam Lowes [CGBM Evolution] and Edgar Pons [Speed Up] took the final points.
