European Moto2: Bezzecchi dominates, Lowes crashes out

Lowes' golden run of three-successive victories put him seven points clear in the standings ahead of Sunday’s Valencia race, but he now trails Bastianini by six following a crash while chasing down the leader.

Xavi Vierge converted pole to the holeshot off the line at the start, though would lose the lead to American Racing’s Joe Roberts at the Nieto left-hander. 

Roberts’ bid to become the first American grand prix winner since 2011 came to an at Turn 2 on the second lap when he crashed out, releasing Bezzecchi into the lead with SAG’s Remy Gardner giving chase. 

Lowes got stuck behind Vierge in the early stages and had several front end moments on his Marc VDS Kalex as he attempted to take third away from the Pertonas Sprinta rider.

The Briton finally got the job done at Turn 2 on lap five and immediately closed in on Gardner ahead, as Vierge soon came under threat from the Ajo KTM of Jorge Martin.

Lowes got ahead of Gardner at Turn 11 on the 10th tour and tried to pressure Bezzecchi out front.

But the gap between the pair hovered around the 0.5-0.7-seconds margin until lap 16, when Lowes crashed out at Turn 6.

The proved to be a gift for VR46’s Bezzecchi, who managed his gap at the head of the pack and eased to the chequered flag by 1.9s to claim his second win of the year and bring himself back into championship contention. 

Bezzecchi’s race wasn’t completely without incident, as he admitted in parc ferme he was struck by a small technical issue in the closing stages. Fortunately, the problem didn’t worsen.

Martin held onto second for his fifth podium of the season, with Gardner on the 2019-spec Kalex chassis completing the rostrum in third. 

Bastianini’s charge from 15th on the grid concluded in fourth, putting him six points clear of Lowes in the championship, while a sixth for an injured Luca Marini - who will step up to MotoGP in 2021 with VR46 and Avintia - means he’s now 19 points behind the new standings leader.

Lorenzo Baldassarri scored his best result since he was second in Qatar back in March in fifth on his Pons Kalex, with teammate Hector Garzo seventh after Marini pipped him late on for sixth. 

Nicolo Bulega was eighth on the Gresini Kalex, with Vierge fading to ninth at the chequered flag ahead of the Speed Up of Jorge Navarro.

Results:

Cla	#	Rider	Bike	Gap
1	72	Marco Bezzecchi	Kalex
2	88	Jorge Martin	Kalex	1.941
3	87	Remy Gardner	Kalex	3.553
4	33	Enea Bastianini	Kalex	4.494
5	7	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	4.648
6	10	Luca Marini	Kalex	5.142
7	40	Hector Garzo	Kalex	5.224
8	11	Nicolo Bulega	Kalex	8.104
9	97	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	8.746
10	9	Jorge Navarro	Speed Up	11.930
11	44	Arón Canet	Speed Up	12.451
12	45	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	13.209
13	23	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	13.585
14	64	Bo Bendsneyder	NTS	15.528
15	62	Stefano Manzi	MV Agusta	19.284
16	42	Marcos Ramirez	Kalex	20.085
17	57	Edgar Pons	Kalex	21.512
18	27	Andi Gilang	Kalex	22.965
19	12	Thomas Luthi	Kalex	24.769
20	19	Lorenzo Dalla Porta	Kalex	34.173
21	99	Kasma Daniel Kasmayudin	Kalex	44.355
22	74	Piotr Biesiekirski	NTS	59.450
	22	Sam Lowes	Kalex	7 Laps
	35	Somkiat Chantra	Kalex	16 Laps
	24	Simone Corsi	MV Agusta	20 Laps
	21	Fabio Di Giannantonio	Speed Up	23 Laps
	16	Joe Roberts	Kalex	24 Laps
	55	Hafizh Syahrin	Speed Up	24 Laps
View full results