Miguel Oliveira won a classic Moto2 race finishing just ahead of Lorenzo Baldassarri, Joan Mir and Pecco Bagnaia.
The Portuguese rider who lacked pace throughout Friday and Saturday made a stunning start aboard his Red Bull KTM and found himself up to third position by the third corner after a stunningly brave start. From there, Oliveira was in a front group with pole sitter Mattia Pasini and Pecco Bagnaia before the Team Sky VR46 rider started falling away from the front three.
However, whilst leading the race the pole sitter Pasini lost the front end going into the first corner with eight laps to go leaving Oliveira at the front on his own. Almost simultaneously as Pasini went down, Lorenzo Baldassarri started cutting through and soon passed Bagnaia into second and set about closing down the leading Oliveira.
With seven laps to go Baldassarri caught and passed Oliveira going into Arabbiata 1, which started a battle between the two constantly, switching places.
With the front two fighting and holding each other up, third placed Bagnaia and fourth placed Mir caught and joined the front two forming a leading pack of four going into the final two laps.
Going into the final lap, Baldassarri led Oliveira, however Oliveira moved past the Italian going up the inside into Savelli. Baldassarri kept his HP40 Pons bike pinned and moved back past Oliveira on the outside. The KTM man refused to concede and maintain the lead going into Arabbiata 1 and managed to hold on for the remainder of the lap and race.
Despite joining the front two, Mir slide his Estrella Galicia 0,0 bike up the inside of Bagnaia into the first corner and held on to claim the final podium spot.
Brad Binder was fifth and had a quiet but confidence boosting race, ahead of the Italian pair of Luca Marini and Andrea Locatelli who finishes sixth and seventh respectively. Xavi Vierge was eighth with Simone Corsi and Fabio Quartararo rounding out the top ten.
It was a day to forget for Brit’s Sam Lowes and Danny Kent. After getting pushed onto the gravel at turn two, Lowes later crashed at the same corner, whilst Danny Kent crashed out of a point scoring position, losing the front end of his Speed Up going into the first corner.
With Oliveira’s win and Bagnaia failing to make the podium, the Italian has seen his lead atop the World Championship fall from 25 to just 13 points.