Jerez Moto2: Baldassarri wins despite Oliveira charge

Pole-sitter Baldassarri gave up first place at the start to Alex Marquez, but passed the Spaniard at Turn 6 two laps later, and led the rest of the race.

The opening stages were all about Miguel Oliveira, the KTM rider impressively carving his way from 14th on the grid to already run second by Lap 5.

Oliveira, who was recently announced as a Tech 3 KTM rider in MotoGP next year, put pressure on Baldassarri as well, with only Marquez managing to stay with the duo.

However, Marquez ended up falling at Turn 2, the Marc VDS rider suffering his first retirement of the season.

Baldassarri then slowly started to pull away, leading by a second on Lap 14 and two by Lap 18.

The Italian eventually won by 2.8s, scoring his second victory in Moto2.

Oliveira took second, his best result of the season and also his third consecutive podium finish.

Francesco Bagnaia (Sky VR46) inherited the final podium spot after Marquez's crash as Xavi Vierge (Intact GP) took fourth closely behind.

Mattia Pasini (Italtrans) finish fifth as Brad Binder (KTM), who was running as high as second early on, dropped down to sixth.

Vierge's teammate Marcel Schrotter salvaged an impressive seventh despite struggling with a torn ligament sustained in a crash at the Austin race.

The top 10 was completed by CGBM duo Sam Lowes and Iker Lecuona and Fabio Quartararo (Speed Up).

Joan Mir dropped from the leading group to 11th, the reigning Moto3 champion struggling with a stomach bug during the weekend.

Romano Fenati crashed from seventh, while Jorge Navarro couldn't even complete the opening lap from fourth on the grid after he was taken out by Luca Marini at the end of the back straight.

Danny Kent, Eric Granado, Jules Danilo, Stefano Manzi, Zulfahmi Khairuddin, Joe Roberts and Steven Odendaal all fell during the race.

Race results

Cla	Rider	Bike	Time	Gap
1	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	39'33.889
2	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	39'36.740	2.851
3	Francesco Bagnaia	Kalex	39'40.139	6.250
4	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	39'40.842	6.953
5	Mattia Pasini	Kalex	39'44.027	10.138
6	Brad Binder	KTM	39'45.620	11.731
7	Marcel Schrötter	Kalex	39'52.027	18.138
8	Sam Lowes	KTM	39'52.566	18.677
9	Iker Lecuona	KTM	39'54.632	20.743
10	Fabio Quartararo	Speed Up	39'54.676	20.787
11	Joan Mir	Kalex	39'57.091	23.202
12	Simone Corsi	Kalex	39'57.308	23.419
13	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	40'00.021	26.132
14	Hector Barbera	Kalex	40'00.840	26.951
15	Andrea Locatelli	Kalex	40'01.010	27.121
16	Bo Bendsneyder	Tech 3	40'01.266	27.377
17	Jorge Navarro	Kalex	40'07.082	33.193
18	Khairul Idham Pawi	Kalex	40'07.723	33.834
19	Isaac Viñales	Kalex	40'18.540	44.651
20	Lukas Tulovic	KTM	40'22.937	49.048
21	Federico Fuligni	Kalex	40'24.222	50.333
22	Xavi Cardelus	Kalex	40'26.905	53.016
23	Hector Garzo	Tech 3	40'33.378	59.489
24	Jules Danilo	Kalex	40'11.543	1 lap
	Steven Odendaal	NTS	37'32.560	2 laps
	Joe Roberts	NTS	31'21.850	5 laps
	Alex Marquez	Kalex	17'15.920	13 laps
	Danny Kent	Speed Up	17'26.832	13 laps
	Zulfahmi Khairuddin	Kalex	16'02.818	14 laps
	Stefano Manzi	Suter	14'04.731	15 laps
	Romano Fenati	Kalex	10'27.003	17 laps
	Eric Granado	Suter	4'08.213	21 laps
	Luca Marini	Kalex