Sandro Cortese of Spain (L) sprays champagne over teammate Arthur Sissis of Australia (R) after they finished in first and third place in the 2012 Australian Moto2 race of the Australian MotoGP at Phillip Island, VictoriaPHILLIP ISLAND (Australia): Moto3 world champion Sandro Cortese sealed his fifth win of the season at Phillip Island today, as his Ajo teammate Arthur Sissis wowed his home crowd in third, reported AutoSport.

With Cortese having wrapped up the series' inaugural title at Sepang a week ago, the pressure was off at Phillip Island.

When the lead battle was broken up by a spate of ride-through penalties for false starts - with front-runners Jonas Folger, Luis Salom and Louis Rossi among those transgressing - Cortese and Monlau's Miguel Oliveira managed to break away.

Oliveira enjoyed a brief spell in the lead, but Cortese had matters in hand. He hit the front for good with three laps to go and duly clinched another victory, as Oliveira secured a career-best runner-up spot.

For the ecstatic crowd, the real hero was Sissis.

The young Australian clung on at the front of an incredible battle for third position to take his maiden world championship podium in the best possible place.

Sissis fended off rivals Alex Rins, Danny Kent, Romano Fenati, Alessandro Tonucci and Efren Vazquez by just fractions of a second at the line after a frantic last few laps.

Maverick Vinales had been in the thick of this battle on his return to the series but crashed seven laps from home.

Sepang podium finisher Zulfahmi Khairuddin led for a few laps early on before drifting back to the tail of the podium dice and then falling when a mechanical problem struck his Ajo KTM.

Meanwhile, Pol Espargaro dominated the Moto2 race, but third place for Marc Marquez clinched him the world championship.

Marquez only needed two points from the final two rounds to secure the title.

But he did not look like he planned to take it easy as his Monlau Suter burst into the lead for a few yards at the start
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Espargaro's Pons Kalex slipped back from pole to fourth during the first lap, but by the end of lap two the Spaniard was in the lead.

Up to a second per lap faster than his rivals, Espargaro was unstoppable in the race and won by a huge 16 seconds.

Marquez had it all in hand, though. He spent most of the race sat in third place behind Scott Redding's Marc VDS Kalex.

Local favorite Anthony West joined them in the closing laps, as he rode a superb race for QMMF to break away from the large pack fighting for fourth.

With nothing to lose and Australian pride to uphold, West battled past before Marquez and Redding into second place in the closing laps.

Marquez sat back in fourth until the final two corners, when he showed just how easy he had been taking it by shooting past Redding, then coming within 0.026s of beating West over the line.

Dominique Aegerter eventually came fifth, ahead of Johann Zarco, Simone Corsi, Esteve Rabat, Randy Krummenacher and Takaaki Nakagami, who led much of lap one after a brilliant start.

Mika Kallio was at the forefront of this group before a late clash with Corsi.

Second-row starter Tom Luthi drifted back then crashed, which was a relief for Andrea Iannone, his rival for third in the standings, who stopped with an apparent engine failure early on.

- mD