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Misano Moto2: Bastianini wins red-flagged race

MotoGP-bound Enea Bastianini won a shortened Moto2 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to close in on the world championship lead after points leader Luca Marini was fourth.

Enea Bastianini, Italtrans Racing Team

Enea Bastianini, Italtrans Racing Team

Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

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

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