Mugello Moto2: Zarco beats Baldassarri in two-part thriller

The race was split into two parts by a crash for Tech 3 rider Xavi Vierge on the fifth lap of the original start, damaging the airfence barrier at Turn 14 and necessitating a repair.

After some 15 minutes, the race was set to get under way again, with the grid being formed on the basis of the running order after three laps.

However, a further delay followed as a number of riders were ordered to start from the rear after breaking the 60-second rule for leaving the pitlane, Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Rins - who were due to take the restart from third and fifth respectively - among them.

That meant Sam Lowes started the 10-lap sprint from pole ahead of Thomas Luthi and Baldassarri, although Zarco soon surged through from his third row grid slot to mix it with the leaders.

After dispatching a slow-starting Lowes and Hafiz Syahrin, Zarco was up to second ahead of Luthi by the fourth lap and wasted little time challenging leader Baldassarri.

Zarco moved into the lead for the first time at Turn 1 on the sixth lap, but was unable to get away from Baldassarri, who after a couple of failed attempts grabbed back the advantage on Lap 8.

The pair swapped places twice more at the first corner on both the penultimate and final laps, but Zarco was able to force Baldassarri aside at the very next turn after losing the advantage, hanging on to take his second win of the year by 0.030s.

A second back, Lowes fought his way through Syahrin and Luthi to get the final place on the podium and move into the lead of the points standings.

Behind Luthi and Syahrin, Axel Pons took his best ever Grand Prix finish in sixth, while Rins limited the damage done to his title challenge by coming from the back to finish seventh.

Franco Morbidelli, a recovering Nakagami and Dominique Aegerter completed the top 10.

Race results:

Pos	Rider	Bike	Time
1	Johann Zarco	Kalex	18:59.391
2	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	+0.030
3	Sam Lowes	Kalex	+1.096
4	Thomas Luthi	Kalex	+1.215
5	Hafizh Syahrin	Kalex	+1.653
6	Axel Pons	Kalex	+2.110
7	Alex Rins	Kalex	+5.649
8	Franco Morbidelli	Kalex	+6.249
9	Takaaki Nakagami	Kalex	+6.280
10	Dominique Aegerter	Kalex	+6.322
11	Sandro Cortese	Kalex	+6.720
12	Simone Corsi	Speed Up	+7.659
13	Miguel Oliveira	Kalex	+7.718
14	Danny Kent	Kalex	+7.745
15	Jonas Folger	Kalex	+8.046
16	Alex Marquez	Kalex	+9.300
17	Julian Simon	Speed Up	+10.410
18	Marcel Schrötter	Kalex	+11.585
19	Ricard Cardus	Suter	+11.654
20	Federico Fuligni	Kalex	+14.739
21	Robin Mulhauser	Kalex	+15.089
22	Ratthapark Wilairot	Kalex	+15.098
23	Edgar Pons	Kalex	+21.012
24	Isaac Viñales	Tech 3	+21.734
25	Alessandro Tonucci	Kalex	+30.005
26	Jesko Raffin	Kalex	+50.423
R	Luis Salom	Kalex
R	Mattia Pasini	Kalex
R	Xavi Vierge	Tech 3
R	Luca Marini	Kalex
DNS	Xavier Simeon	Speed Up