Andalusia Moto2: Bastianini beats Marini for first win

First-time Moto2 poleman Marco Bezzecchi nailed the launch off the line and held the lead at Turn 1 ahead of Bastianini and last week’s Jerez race winner Luca Marini.

Italtrans rider Bastianini quickly dispatched the VR46 Kalex of Bezzecchi and immediately opened up an advantage of half a second at the front.

Marini quickly surmounted his VR46 teammate Bezzecchi, who began to fall into the clutches of Sam Lowes on the Marc VDS Kalex as the top two opened up a buffer.

By lap five, Bastianini’s advantage stood at around seven tenths, though Marini would cut this down to half a second two tours later.

A mistake for Bastianini at Turn 8 on lap 11 gave Marini a sniff, but the Italtrans rider defended his line well and kept himself in check over the next few tours as Marini hounded him.

Bastianini would start to edge away again on lap 14, re-establishing his lead at six tenths and continued to put more daylight between himself and Marini.

With five laps to go, Bastianini had pulled the pin and his lead over Marini opened out to 1.8s, with that gap extending to over two seconds over the final few tours.

Keeping it clean across the last laps, Bastianini eased to his first grand prix victory since the 2018 Moto3 Catalan GP and has announced himself as a championship contender.

Marini crossed the line in second, while teammate Bezzecchi fended off a late charge from Lowes to secure his first Moto2 podium. It marks the first time there has been an all-Italian podium in the intermediate class since Imola in 1998.

However, while both VR46 riders celebrated with each other after the chequered flag, they both had an embarrassing collision at between Turns 1 and 2. Both were unharmed.

Aron Canet got his Aspar-run Speed Up bike to fifth ahead of KTM Ajo’s Jorge Martin, while Tom Luthi was seventh on the Intact GP Kalex.

Xavi Vierge was eighth on the Petronas Sprinta machine ahead of MV Agusta’s Stefano Manzi and the second Intact bike of Marcel Schrotter, who mugged Nagashima at the final corner when the Japanese rider ran wide.

Nagashima took a heavy knock in a crash in FP3 on Saturday and could only qualify 15th, but maintains a slender championship lead of two points over Bastianini, while Marini is now only five behind the Japanese rider.

Race results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Laps	Gap
1	33	Enea Bastianini	Kalex	23
2	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	23	2.153
3	72	Marco Bezzecchi	Kalex	23	3.243
4	22	Sam Lowes	Kalex	23	3.817
5	44	Arón Canet	Speed Up	23	9.155
6	88	Jorge Martin	Kalex	23	11.988
7	12	Thomas Luthi	Kalex	23	13.857
8	97	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	23	19.590
9	62	Stefano Manzi	MV	23	20.199
10	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	23	20.262
11	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	23	20.447
12	11	Nicolo Bulega	Kalex	23	21.464
13	37	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	23	24.804
14	87	Remy Gardner	Kalex	23	26.370
15	42	Marcos Ramirez	Kalex	23	27.018
16	57	Edgar Pons	Kalex	23	27.126
17	16	Joe Roberts	Kalex	23	30.228
18	21	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Speed Up	23	30.895
19	64	Bo Bendsneyder	NTS	23	41.678
20	27	Andi Gilang	Kalex	23	41.793
	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	20	3 Laps
	24	Simone Corsi	MV	19	4 Laps
	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Speed Up	12	11 Laps
	9	Jorge Navarro	Speed Up	9	14 Laps
	35	Somkiat Chantra	Kalex	5	18 Laps
	40	Hector Garzo	Kalex	4	19 Laps
	19	Lorenzo Dalla Porta	Kalex	4	19 Laps
	99	Kasma Daniel Kasmayudin	Kalex	3	20 Laps
	96	Jake Dixon	Kalex	2	21 Laps
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