Ajo KTM’s Celestino Vietti won in the Austrian marque’s backyard to take his second Moto2 victory at the Red Bull Ring in successive seasons.
The Italian rider, who has struggled for consistent form all season, controlled proceedings throughout the 23-lap race with a minor false neutral blip his only error en route to a fine victory.
MT Helmets rider Ai Ogura had been setting the pace early on in the weekend, but a crash during second practice ruled him out from competing further after fracturing his right hand.
With the Japanese rider out of the running, Vietti took the opportunity to claim pole position, sharing the front row with Fantic Racing’s Aron Canet and Ogura’s championship-leading team-mate Sergio Garcia.
Row Two was occupied by Speed Up’s Alonso Lopez, CFMOTO’s Jake Dixon and American Racing’s Marcos Ramirez.
At lights out with 23 Laps ahead, Vietti ran wide at Turn 1 with Canet, with the latter taking the lead.
Garcia claimed third with Lopez, Dixon and Ramirez rounding out the top six.
With the top four starting a small breakaway on Lap 1, Lopez moved into third over Garcia at Turn 9.
Vietti reclaimed the lead from canet on Lap 2 at Turn 4, vying to make the most of his pole-sitting opportunity.
As the field came around to start Lap 3, Lopez moved past Canet at Turn 1 as Dixon had moved up to fifth to tag onto the back of fourth-placed Garcia.
MarcVDS’ Tony Arbolino moved up to sixth at turn 1 on Lap 4, displacing Ramirez in the process.
Out in front, Vietti was setting successive fastest laps, pulling Lopez and Canet along with him as the top three opened up a slight 1.3s gap over Garcia and Dixon by Lap 5.
Dixon decided he wanted to lead the chase to the top three as he made a move on Garcia to take fourth at Turn 1 on Lap 6.
Into Turn 3 and Arbolino followed suit to displace Garcia further.
Vietti, winner at the Red Bull Ring in 2023 was utilising that experience to good effect with his lead growing to a second by Lap 8.
A lap later, that lead had grown to 1.5s over Lopez and Canet as fourth-placed Dixon punched in the fastest lap of the race.
But all of a sudden, from the first to the middle split on Lap 10, Vietti’s lead shrank from 1.5s to under four-tenths with a false neutral at Turn 3 the cause.
Vietti was able to slowly build his advantage back up with the lead growing to nearly seven-tenths by Lap 13.
Lopez and Canet enjoyed a 1.3s margin over Dixon and Arbolino by this point with the top five riders three seconds clear of the rest of the field, which was led by sixth-placed Garcia.
With 10 laps to go Lopez was doing his best to keep Vietti honest, bringing the gap between the pair back down to half a second – although it looked like the top three, including Canet, were unlikely to swap positions.
But Canet had other ideas, trying a lunge on Lopez at the end of Lap 15, which he couldn’t pull off.
Canet clearly had the pace that Lopez couldn’t muster, but the longer he failed to make a move stick, the easier things would get for race leader Vietti.
With a scrap taking place for second, Vietti was able to open his lead back to over a second and Dixon was able to close within a second of third place with seven laps to go.
Dixon was now the fastest rider on track and had Lopez and Canet within his sights.
Garcia, languishing in sixth and four seconds back from the top five was struggling for outright pace and his race was made worse when he was handed a long-lap penalty for exceeding track limits with five laps to go.
The championship leader duly took the penalty a lap later, dropping all the way to 13th in the process.
Vietti meanwhile, enjoyed a two-second lead at this stage, controlling the race comfortably.
Dixon’s chase of Lopez and Canet was heating up with just a lap and a half remaining and the British rider was nibbling at the back wheel of the Fantic Racing machine in front of him.
Dixon made his move onto Canet at Turn 1 at the start of the Final Lap, but looked to have touched the green kerbing, potentially breaching track limits rules.
There was no such issue for Vietti however, who calmly rode home to take a confident victory in front of the KTM top brass with a celebratory stand-up wheelie.
Lopez held onto second with Dixon taking third place across the line in front of Canet – escaping any penalty for track limits as the Fantic Rider also touched the green kerb on the final tour of the Red Bull Ring.
Arbolino came home in fifth with Ramirez a further six seconds back in sixth place, just ahead of Husqvarna’s Darryn Binder.
Seventh went to Honda Team Asia’s Somkiat Chantra with American racing’s Joe Roberts only able to muster ninth place.
MarcVDS’ Filip Salac rounded out the top-10 ahead of Ajo’s Deniz Oncu and CFMOTO’s Izan Guevara.
Gresini’s Manuel Gonzalez took 13th with Garcia’s long-lap penalty proving costly as the Spaniard finished in 14th, extending his title lead over the sidelined Ogura by just two points.
Rounding out the points-paying positions in 15th was Husqvarna’s Senna Agius.
