Gwin then started to pull away again very slightly in sector 3. He went fastest on the sector and pulled out about a quarter of a second on Hart and Minnaar, although both were still within one second going into the final minute of racing. Sector 3 was also where Brendan Fairclough started his charge up the field. After slightly disappointing 21st and 23rd places in the first two sectors, he was less than a tenth of a second slower than Aaron Gwin and moved up to 14th overall at split 3. Connor Fearon also had the best sector of his race, going 3rd fastest and moving up one place to 6th – knocking on the door of the podium…
Sectors 4 & 5
After three sectors it looked like it was going to be a familiar story for Danny Hart – a quick run, maybe a podium but agonisingly short of the win yet again. This time though, the story was different. Hart hit the gas in the final two sectors and no one had an answer. In sector 4, with the entire top 10 covered by only 1.8 seconds he took over half a second out of Aaron Gwin, which also halved Gwin’s lead and put him up into second place, just ahead of Greg Minnaar.
Conversely, this was where Minnaar lost the chance of another win for his tally, a mistake putting him only 19th on the sector, 1.8 seconds back from Hart. Remi Thirion was also still going strong in third place on the sector and consolidating his fourth place overall. Sector 4 was also where Troy Brosnan lost the battle for the final podium position and gave up the vital overall points that meant Hart would leapfrog him in the overall standings at the end of the race. A mistake put him 25th on the sector while Connor Fearon went fourth and sneaked onto the final podium spot with only the final 23 seconds of racing to go…
23 seconds to race and Aaron Gwin has nearly a half second advantage. If I was a betting man, I’d stick my money on Gwin to win 9 times out of 10. This time though, was that tenth time… Gwin didn’t do a lot wrong – going 6th fastest on the stage – but crucially, Danny Hart continued his flying bottom sectors and stormed feet up through the final turns to grab just over half a second and sneak the win by the tiniest of margins – less than one tenth of a second! Bredan Fairclough also finished off a storming bottom half of the course only just behind Hart on the sector and completed a stunning recovery from 20th at split 2 to 8th at the finish.
