Augusto Fernandez dominated proceedings at Le Mans to win the French Moto2 contest by 3.7 seconds, while pole-man Pedro Acosta crashed from the lead early on.
Fernandez slipped in behind team-mate Acosta off the start as the duo quickly began to craft a lead over their pursuers, the Ajo men having put over five seconds on the rest of the field in just the first eight circulations.
A mistake from Acosta at the final bend just past a thirds-distance allowed Fernandez to arrive onto the rear of his rookie team-mate, though the reigning Moto3 world champion soon got back into his rhythm and started to edge away once again.
Disaster was to follow just a few laps later though as Acosta ran wide and dropped his Kalex at Turn 6 just prior to half-way through the sprint, forcing his early retirement and leaving Fernandez with a huge advantage over the tussle for the runners-up spot between Aron Canet, Cameron Beaubier and Somkiat Chantra.
Fernandez ultimately managed his gap across the closing stages of the race to eventually cross the line 3.7 seconds clear of Canet, who was able to pull clear of a close battle for third between Chantra and Beaubier in the final couple of tours.
Having made an earlier mistake that dropped him from second to fourth, Chantra regrouped and clawed back his deficit to Beaubier – the Thai racer making the move on the American Racing pilot into the penultimate corner with just over a lap remaining.
Beaubier saw a maiden Moto2 rostrum result disappear as he found himself unable to mount a counter-attack on Chantra, leaving him to take the chequered flag in a still career-best fourth.
Ai Ogura salvaged fifth after struggling for speed relative to the front-runners throughout, the Honda Team Asia man passing Marcel Schrotter for the position in the latter reaches of the contest.
Joe Roberts was seventh for Italtrans ahead of series leader Celestino Vietti, who charged back to eighth having started a lowly 19th – the Italian also having to recover from running into the gravel at the penultimate bend early on.
Jorge Navarro lost out to the VR46 rider on the final lap and was therefore ninth, while the deputising Stefano Manzi completed the top ten for the Yamaha VR46 Master Camp squad.
Several teams had horror French outings, including Marc VDS who lost Sam Lowes before the race even began as a result of a warm-up high-side that left him feeling dizzy, while Tony Arbolino crashed out early on.
Speed Up lost the impressive Alonso Lopez from fourth early on after he ran wide at Turn 6 and collided with an attacking GasGas Aspar of Albert Arenas – the pair going down though Arenas remounted en-route to 19th – while the other Speed Up entry of Fermin Aldeguer went down just ahead of Arbolino on the second lap.
Jake Dixon’s chances of a strong result on the sister Aspar entry also disappeared following a sluggish start that initially saw him drop to eighth, before a crash at Turn 13 shortly after condemned him to an eventual 21st finishing position.
Marcos Ramirez lost out on a possible top five meanwhile with a crash of his own after he lost his MV Agusta at Turn 7, while Barry Baltus dropped his machine while running within the top ten late on.
Ogura’s fifth-place run sees him to close to within 16 points of Vietti in the points heading to Mugello in two weeks time, with Canet a further three points adrift in third overall.
