By world championship level standards, the Red Bull Ring can be considered to be quirky. It’s not Cadwell Park, but the layout creates challenges for riders across all classes.

In Moto2 and Moto3 this past weekend, the track contributed to fairly stretched out races, yet ones that still provided lots of close overtaking in the chasing packs.

Just not so much at the front.

Moto3: Quiles Again

In Moto3, the top 4 in the championship made up the first 4 on the grid and – as in Misano – David Almansa looked like having a decent pace advantage over the rest. However, as in Misano, Max Quiles and his team found something extra for race day.

Whilst a week ago Quiles stole a victory on the race to the finish line, in Austria unfortunately Almansa gave a (potential) victory away. Just as the TNT Sports commentary team were singing his praises for looking at one with his bike (and rightly so), Almansa tucked the front at Turn 2B on Lap 8.

Quiles accepted the present and went on to win the race by 2.3 seconds, putting himself on the verge of clinching the Moto3 championship in the process.

Whilst Quiles serenely sauntered around the track, behind him most riders were struggling to stay on it. The MotoGP TImingPass service was firing out Track Limit Warning and Long Lap Penalty notifications and it was hard to keep up.

Scott Ogden was one of many to fall foul of the rules, taking his Long Lap Penalty too early and having to do another one to ruin his race after he had qualified sixth.

Thankfully Britain’s Eddie O’Shea and Ireland’s Casey O’Gorman stayed out of trouble. O’Shea got to the front of his pack and earned a brilliant career-best finish of fourth, whilst O’Gorman kept his cool and finished sixth.

Moto2: Guevara Gets It Done

In Moto2, Pramac Yamaha’s Izan Guevara added to his win in France with his second victory of the season in Austria.

Guevara was able to get out in front and then got into a rhythm, building a four-second lead and making it look relatively comfortable. That was until Lap 18 when he had a massive front-end slide going into Turn 9 that almost had him tumbling through the gravel.

He had the presence of mind to pick the bike up and run wide. Although it cut his lead by nearly 1.5 seconds, Guevara regained his composure and get the impressive Filip Salac at bay, winning the race by 1.7 seconds.

Guevara now sits second in the championship, trailing Manu Gonzalez (who finished 4th in Austria) by 35.5 points. He has been a model of consistency this season, with his lowest race finish being 7th, and the way he is maturing as a rider shows why Yamaha have put their faith in him by promoting him to MotoGP next season.

Meanwhile, things didn’t go to plan for another pending Moto2 graduate. Senna Agius’s promotion to MotoGP with KTM Tech3 was finally made official ahead of the Austrian round, but the Aussie crashed in qualifying and then suffered a technical problem that forced him to retire from the race.