Italian rider Tony Arbolino, aboard a Kalex, claimed the victory in a chaotic Thai Grand Prix. The Moto2 race opened with significant uncertainty as rain hammered the circuit, and the Racing Direction faced mounting delays. After attempting a restart following just five laps, officials twice red-flagged the event while waiting for better conditions that never fully arrived.
The race eventually covered only eight completed laps, with half points allocated to all classified riders who did not reach two-thirds of the scheduled distance, in line with the regulations.
Arbolino stood atop the podium, flanked by Czech rider Filip Salač on the Kalex and Spaniard Aron Canet, also on Kalex. Alonso López, aboard a Boscoscuro, finished in fifth place, followed by Augusto Fernández on a Kalex in seventh. Albert Arenas (Kalex) finished fourteenth, Pedro Acosta (Kalex) sixteenth, Jorge Navarro (Kalex) twentieth, Marcos Ramírez (MV Agusta) twenty-third, and Manuel “Manugas” González (Kalex) twenty-fifth.
Moments before the start, tension rose as light rain began to fall and López, riding a Boscoscuro, switched the front tire after noticing a notable vibration during the formation lap.
The rain intensified, forcing the start procedure to be conducted under wet conditions. The race was declared wet and shortened to eight laps, curtailing the original 24-lap distance and leaving the field with 16 laps still to run in Part 2 of the event, were it to proceed. The shortened format mirrored the decision to halt after eight rounds once the conditions deteriorated again.
All teams switched from dry to wet tires during the transition, yet rain stopped intermittently in places, creating further uncertainty. Some riders, including Manuel González and Italian Lorenzo dalla Porta, opted to pit for a return to dry tires, a move that relegated them to the back of the starting grid for the restart.
There were also riders who had to leave the pit lane entirely to address mechanical adjustments during the final two minutes of the start procedure. Spaniard Albert Arenas faced the same constraint and had to begin from the back row on the restart.
The strategy employed by those three riders did not yield immediate gains, as the track remained slick and rain persisted in certain spots, influencing performance across the field.
Thai rider Somkiat Chantra burst from the line in an aggressive bid for his second win of the season on home soil. The rain quickly claimed its first victims, with American Cameron Beaubier tumbling at the line. Spaniard Alonso López attempted to hold his position while managing the chaotic conditions around him.
Spaniard Fermín Aldeguer, racing on a Boscoscuro, crashed on the second lap, and two laps later, Chantra’s hopes dimmed as he slipped further back, disappointing thousands of local fans who hoped for a home victory. López seized the lead, while Aron Canet, who started from eighteenth, moved into a competitive position just two laps later.
Arenas, who began from the last row, fought back in the second round to secure tenth place and gain momentum as the race evolved.
From the front, Canet surged to the race lead on the fourth lap, closely followed by Salač, López, Jake Dixon, Arbolino, and Ai Ogura. Canet chose to maintain a steady rhythm to minimize mistakes, a prudent approach in such tricky conditions where even a small error could prove costly.
In the fifth lap, Salač overtook Canet for the lead and then began pressing forward to create distance from the rest of the field, though neither López nor Arbolino allowed the gap to grow uncontested.
Rain intensified and the decision was made to red-flag the race on the eighth lap as conditions deteriorated further. Despite not all riders having completed the full distance, only a portion of the field reached the threshold for a restart before the rule dictated two-thirds completion. When regulation required a restart, five riders had to restart for the race to go again, with Arbolino, Salač, and Canet remaining at the front, followed by Dixon, López, and Ogura in pursuit, while Fernández, Roberts, and Kubo traded positions further back, creating a field with nine classified riders across the board.
On the second start, as the bikes rolled onto the formation lap, Race Direction again halted the session with a red flag due to very poor visibility and heavy rain across portions of the circuit. The day’s events underscored the challenges of weather-shortened grands prix and the delicate balance required to preserve rider safety while delivering a fair result.
At the conclusion, Arbolino took the checkered flag ahead of Salač and Canet, with the rest of the top contenders locked in a tense configuration behind them. The final arrangement reflected a race that offered drama from start to finish, with rain, tire strategy, and rapid changes in track conditions shaping the outcome for the Moto2 class in Thailand.
— End recap. Attribution: MotoGP coverage and race reporting.