Pedro Acosta won the Algarve Moto3 contest to secure the championship as a rookie after title rival Dennis Foggia was taken out by Darryn Binder on the final tour.
The KTM Ajo racer fought back well after qualifying only 14th in the early laps, the Spaniard breaching the top six after only two circulations.
Chief championship rival Foggia meanwhile had used the blistering straight-line performance of hid Leopard Racing Honda to move into the lead, a position he would hold for the majority of the 21 lap contest.
With a win being sufficient to secure the crown with a round to spare, Acosta was keen to repeat the success he had at the Algarve International Circuit and rode aggressively, snatching the lead away on multiple occasions with breathtaking late-braking manoeuvres, though Foggia usually found himself able to snap back swiftly afterwards.
Heading into the final lap Foggia led the way ahead of Acosta and charging pole-man Sergio Garcia, the GasGas rider firing down the inside of Acosta at Turn 1-though he ran slightly wide and allowed the KTM man back through.
Acosta subsequently dived through on Foggia into Turn 3 to take the lead, though unfortunately for the Italian he wouldn’t make the corner exit as Petronas SRT’s Binder broke too late and slammed into the rear of his Honda, ending Foggia’s title hopes as he went down along with Garcia as a result of the impact.
This allowed Acosta a small lead over Andrea Migno for the rest of the tour, allowing the 2022 Ajo Moto2 racer to take the chequered flag for his sixth success of the season to secure the Moto3 world title as a rookie, a feat never accomplished in the series before.
Migno came home just 0.354s later to take second ahead of Avintia’s Niccolo Antonelli, while Binder took the chequered flag fourth before any potential penalty could be applied-the 2022 Petronas SRT MotoGP pilot disqualified from the contest.
Jeremy Alcoba therefore inherited fourth for Gresini ahead of Izan Guevara, while Ayumu Sasaki bagged sixth on his Tech 3-run KTM.
Romano Fenati managed seventh for MAX Racing ahead of the sole-remaining Leopard machine of Xavier Artigas, while Tatsuki Suzuki ended up ninth as Filip Salac completed the top ten.
John McPhee saw his challenge end early on after crashing at Turn 15 after just five laps from fifth, the Scot trying a little too hard to pull back the advantage the leading quartet had build up at that point in the encounter.
Jaume Masia also looked good to tussle for supremacy in the closing stages after briefly moving to the lead ahead of team-mate Acosta, though his day would come to a premature end after being caught on the outside of a late dive from Garcia on Binder, Masia left to run into the South African and go down as a result.
