Brno Moto2: Oliveira wins thrilling four-way fight

The victory was contested among several riders, with four of them, Oliveira, Marini, Francesco Bagnaia and Lorenzo Baldassarri split by 0.745 seconds at the finish.

Polesitter Marini, his teammate Bagnaia and Oliveira were the early contenders, the trio constantly trading the lead  before Bagnaia settled in at the head of the field for several laps.

Baldassarri soon broke the status quo by carving his way through the top three, and taking the lead on lap 13 of 19.

Works KTM rider Oliveira followed suit in passing Sky VR46 duo Bagnaia and Marini and was then also able to move past Baldassarri's Pons machine.

Marini also passed Baldassarri, who then started to fight with Bagnaia for third, as Marini put increasing pressure on Oliveira.

On the last lap, Oliveira ran wide at Turn 1, which allowed Marini through and the Portuguese rider unsuccessfully tried to fight back at both T3 and T10 before he made a move stick into the T11 left-hander.

Marini was able to go side-by-side at the final chicane, but Oliveira had the better line out of the last corner and took the win by 0.070s.

Bagnaia ended up taking third ahead of Baldassarri while Xavi Vierge, who shadowed the top four but lost pace late on, settled for fifth.

Brad Binder took sixth on the second Ajo KTM ahead of Marcel Schrotter and Jorge Navarro, as Sam Lowes made a late move on Mattia Pasini for ninth.

By taking his second win of the season, Oliveira took the championship lead, with Bagnaia now two points behind.

Alex Marquez crashed at the final turn just after passing Oliveira for third, as his Marc VDS teammate Joan Mir was involved in a violent crash on the opening lap.

Mir crashed with Tech 3 duo Bo Bendsneyder and Remy Gardner, the future Suzuki MotoGP rider's bike landing on the former, but all three walking away from the incident.

Other riders to crash out included Moto2 debutant Alejandro Medina, Xavi Cardelus, Stefano Manzi, Romano Fenati, who had a jump start, and Danny Kent.

Race results:

Pos.	#	Rider	Bike	Time/Gap
1	44	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	39'22.324
2	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	0.070
3	42	Francesco Bagnaia	Kalex	0.525
4	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	0.745
5	97	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	3.362
6	41	Brad Binder	KTM	3.643
7	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	3.694
8	9	Jorge Navarro	Kalex	3.728
9	22	Sam Lowes	KTM	4.038
10	54	Mattia Pasini	Kalex	5.030
11	20	Fabio Quartararo	Speed Up	5.153
12	40	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	5.839
13	27	Iker Lecuona	KTM	6.857
14	5	Andrea Locatelli	Kalex	9.473
15	24	Simone Corsi	Kalex	10.054
16	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	10.626
17	77	Dominique Aegerter	KTM	10.658
18	16	Joe Roberts	NTS	18.136
19	4	Steven Odendaal	NTS	19.040
20	89	Khairul Idham Pawi	Kalex	21.334
21	66	Niki Tuuli	Kalex	28.078
22	95	Jules Danilo	Kalex	34.570
23	51	Eric Granado	Suter	45.169
24	12	Sheridan Morais	Kalex	1'08.853
Ret	52	Danny Kent	Speed Up	8 Laps
Ret	73	Alex Marquez	Kalex	11 Laps
Ret	13	Romano Fenati	Kalex	12 Laps
Ret	62	Stefano Manzi	Suter	14 Laps
Ret	18	Xavi Cardelus	Kalex	17 Laps
Ret	55	Alejandro Medina	Kalex	18 Laps
Ret	36	Joan Mir	Kalex	-
Ret	64	Bo Bendsneyder	Tech 3	-
Ret	87	Remy Gardner	Tech 3	-