Valencia: Danny Kent wins Moto3 title!

Danny Kent became the first British motorcycling Grand Prix champion for 38 years as he sealed the Moto3 Championship by six points in the final race in Valencia.

Kent is poised to clinch the Moto3 title this weekend on his Leopard Racing Honda, and will move to Moto2 with the same team.

Kent, riding a canny, mature race did what he had to do to lift the title by just six points from Oliveira by 260 points to 254. Kent’s time of 1’39.930 was good enough to see him end Friday quickest, despite finishing down in fifth in a highly competitive FP2 that saw only a second separate the top 23 riders. Kent’s teammate Hiroki Ono (+0.085s) completed the provisional front row as he looks to bounce back from two DNF’s in the last three races.

However, a hard qualifying session left him 18th on the grid, while Oliveira, who needed to win to have a shot at the title, lined up in fourth.

Leopard Racing rider Kent won three of the first four races of the season and collected three more victories over the course of the campaign. There were also DNFs for Alessandro Tonucci, Juanfran Guevara, Tatsuki Suzuki and Remy Gardner while Fabio Quartararo was forced to retire on his return from injury.