Misano Moto2: Bastianini wins red-flagged race

Bastianini is set to step up to MotoGP next season with the Avintia squad after confirming last weekend he has signed a deal with Ducati.

The original race only ran for six full laps when spots of rain forced the red flag to be flown, with Bastianini having taken the lead the tour before. 

The second start had to be abandoned owing to worsening rain with the entire field on slicks, and a delay of around 15 minutes was had before a 10-lap restart got underway just after 1:10pm local time.

Bastianini was jumped by Marini off the line, though the Italtrans rider aggressively tried to take the lead back at Turn 4 and forced both wide – allowing Xavi Vierge on the Petronas Sprinta bike to hit the front.

Vierge was overhauled by Bastianini through the fast Curvone right-hander at Turn 11, with world championship leader Marini losing spots as his decision to stick with the harder rubber he used for the original start looked to be backfiring.

Bastianini immediately put a second between himself and the chasing Vierge, with Marco Bezzecchi on the sister VR46 bike working his way up to the back of the podium battle in fourth having elected to switch to a soft tyre for the restart.

He would find himself in second on lap six when Marcel Schrotter forced both himself and Vierge out wide at the Turn 8 Quercia corner on lap six.

Vierge’s race would last just one more corner as Schrotter clattered into him up the inside of the Tramonto right-hander and sent him into retirement. 

With Bezzecchi and Marc VDS’ Sam Lowes moving ahead of Schrotter, Bastianini came under serious threat in the closing stages.

Bastianini’s lead came down from over a second to eight tenths on the eighth lap, with the gap dipping underneath six tenths at one stage.

But the Italtrans rider held sway and led Bezzecchi across the line by 0.720 seconds to move to five points off championship leader Marini. 

Lowes completed the podium after an early tussle with Marini, while Schrotter rounded out the top five on his Intact GP machine. 

Petronas Sprinta’s Jake Dixon scored his first top six finish in Moto2 in sixth, beating Speed Up’s Jorge Navarro and Fabio Di Giannantonio, the sister Intact GP bike of Tom Luthi and Pons’ Hector Garzo – who was promoted a place after Nicolo Bulega (Gresini) was docked a place for exceeding track limits on the last lap. 

Ajo KTM’s Jorge Martin was forced to miss the second Misano round after once again testing positive for COVID-19. He was replaced by Mattia Pasini, who just missed the points in 16th.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Time
1	33	Enea Bastianini	Kalex
2	72	Marco Bezzecchi	Kalex	0.720
3	22	Sam Lowes	Kalex	1.124
4	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	2.310
5	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	4.132
6	96	Jake Dixon	Kalex	7.201
7	9	Jorge Navarro	Speed Up	7.558
8	21	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Speed Up	7.704
9	12	Thomas Luthi	Kalex	7.762
10	40	Hector Garzo	Kalex	8.249
11	11	Nicolo Bulega	Kalex	8.141
12	24	Simone Corsi	MV Agusta	8.663
13	44	Arón Canet	Speed Up	9.189
14	19	Lorenzo Dalla Porta	Kalex	12.538
15	62	Stefano Manzi	MV Agusta	12.744
16	54	Mattia Pasini	KTM	12.935
17	42	Marcos Ramirez	Kalex	13.227
18	37	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	13.779
19	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Speed Up	14.525
20	57	Edgar Pons	Kalex	15.028
21	35	Somkiat Chantra	Kalex	15.511
22	64	Bo Bendsneyder	NTS	18.160
23	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	18.079
24	27	Andi Gilang	Kalex	21.265
25	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	25.587
	74	Piotr Biesiekirski	NTS
	97	Xavi Vierge	Kalex
	16	Joe Roberts	Kalex
	99	Kasma Daniel Kasmayudin	Kalex
View full results