Luca Marini defeated Tetsuta Nagashima to claim a dominant victory in the Jerez Moto2 contest, heading the Qatar winner by 1.2 seconds.
Marini made a strong start as he moved from fourth on the grid to third behind pole-man Jorge Martin and a fast-starting Aron Canet, before quickly passing the Aspar machine at the final turn at the end of the second lap.
The VR46 man then quickly closed down Martin’s slender advantage, passing the ’18 Moto3 world champion at the same corner just a lap later.
He immediately began to edge away from the Ajo-run Kalex, who was swiftly passed for second by team-mate Nagashima just a few corners later.
The leading pair then began to pull away from the rest across the remainder of the 23 lap encounter, Nagashima keeping Marini under pressure but never able to get within a second of the Italian.
This left Marini to count down the laps and control his lead to eventually take the chequered flag just over a second clear of the Japanese ace, while Martin was able to hold off Sam Lowes’ Marc VDS Kalex to claim his first podium of the season.
Canet was unable to sustain the pace of the leading four but still managed a strong fifth in only his second Moto2 start, with team-mate Hafizh Syahrin capping an impressive race for the Aspar Speed Up bikes with sixth from 15th on the grid.
Remy Gardner made a similarly impressive comeback to claim seventh from a lowly 12th place start, while Lorenzo Baldassarri held off the advances of Enea Bastianini and Xavi Vierge to take eighth.
Underperforming somewhat was three-time ’19 Moto2 race winner Augusto Fernandez, who could manage just 13th on the second Marc VDS entry after retiring from the Qatar outing.
Marco Bezzecchi lost out on a potential debut podium after crashing out at around a thirds-distance having just dispatched Martin for third.
The second VR46 rider ran wide at the fast Turn 10 right hander, losing the back end as a result and flying off into the gravel and out of the race.
Intact GP’s Thomas Luthi and Marcel Schrotter were two other high-profile crashers, the Swiss pilot going down at Turn 9 on the penultimate tour from ninth while trying to pressure Baldassarri for eighth, while Schrotter went down from fifth early on at Turn 11.
Jorge Navarro barely got going after a slow start from the middle of the front row, the factory Speed Up rider clashing with Bezzecchi on the exit of Turn 1 that caused him to crash out early.
