Valencia Moto2: Oliveira beats Morbidelli for third straight win

The race started with a duel between Marc VDS duo Alex Marquez and Morbidelli, although the latter squandered a better start after running wide in the first two corners.

Marquez led early on from pole, but was eventually demoted by Morbidelli on Lap 3.

The Spanish rider was also passed by Italtrans man Mattia Pasini, but Marquez fought back a lap later and the Italian soon crashed out.

That promoted KTM duo Oliveira and Brad Binder into third and fourth, and the former soon starting to put pressure on Marquez for second.

It took Oliveira five laps to make a move and by the time he was up to second, Morbidelli had  built a two-second lead.

Oliveira slowly closed the gap down to one second before starting to quickly catch up with Morbidelli, and eventually took the lead with a forceful move at Turn 4 with six laps to go.

Morbidelli couldn't match Oliveira's pace afterwards, the latter crossing the line first by 2.1s.

Binder completed KTM's third consecutive double podium, as Marquez lost fourth to Francesco Bagnaia (Sky VR46) on the penultimate lap.

Hafizh Syahrin (Raceline Malaysia) was sixth, ahead of MotoGP-bound Takaaki Nakagami (Team Asia) and Fabio Quartararo (Pons).

Simone Corsi (Speed Up) passed Dominique Aegerter (Kiefer) for ninth, the latter completing the top 10.

Six riders retired from the race, including Xavi Vierge from seventh, Xavier Simeon, who will move to MotoGP next year, Jorge Navarro, Sandro Cortese, Ricky Cardus and Stefano Manzi.

Race results

Cla	Rider	Bike	Time/Gap
1	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	43'15.843
2	Franco Morbidelli	Kalex	2.154
3	Brad Binder	KTM	4.181
4	Francesco Bagnaia	Kalex	11.181
5	Alex Marquez	Kalex	12.146
6	Hafizh Syahrin	Kalex	14.595
7	Takaaki Nakagami	Kalex	18.446
8	Fabio Quartararo	Kalex	22.188
9	Simone Corsi	Speed Up	23.592
10	Dominique Aegerter	Suter	23.751
11	Axel Pons	Kalex	27.388
12	Isaac Viñales	Kalex	29.688
13	Marcel Schrötter	Suter	31.442
14	Augusto Fernandez	Speed Up	32.933
15	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	33.150
16	Andrea Locatelli	Kalex	34.335
17	Eric Granado	Kalex	34.731
18	Iker Lecuona	Kalex	39.828
19	Mattia Pasini	Kalex	39.940
20	Edgar Pons	Kalex	42.678
21	Jesko Raffin	Kalex	43.275
22	Remy Gardner	Tech 3	51.990
23	Luca Marini	Kalex	54.931
24	Tarran Mackenzie	Suter	1'09.494
25	Khairul Idham Pawi	Kalex	1'10.070
26	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	1'33.876
	Xavi Vierge	Tech 3	11 laps
	Jorge Navarro	Kalex	16 laps
	Sandro Cortese	Suter	19 laps
	Xavier Simeon	Kalex	20 laps
	Ricard Cardus	Kalex	21 laps
	Stefano Manzi	Kalex	25 laps