Francesco Bagnaia held of a late charge from Lorenzo Baldassarri in Qatar to claim his maiden Moto2 win, as a brake issue in the final laps thwarted Alex Marquez's challenge.
Bagnaia took the holeshot from third on the grid, while fourth-placed Miguel Oliveira was lucky to remain upright after colliding with Alex Marquez's rear tyre on the run into Turn 1.
Oliveira dropped to eighth as a result, while Bagnaia led a trio consisting of Baldassarri and pole man Marquez comfortably away from the battle for fourth headed by Italtrans' Mattia Pasini.
Bagnaia managed a gap of around half a second for much of the first half of the race, his advantage extending to a second briefly after Marquez and Baldassarri debated second place on lap 11 – the Marc VDS rider getting the upper hand with a late lunge at Turn 6.
With seven laps to go, Marquez had reduced the gap to Bagnaia to four tenths, but was forced off track a lap later as he was hit by a rear brake issue.
The problem resolved itself, and Marquez rejoined in third place. But the damage was done, and now Pasini – who had broken away from the chasing Ajo KTMs of Oliveira and Brad Binder by this point – was hounding him.
Bagnaia looked to have the measure of Baldassarri with three laps to go, but the Pons rider cut his deficit down to just three tenths over the penultimate lap and applied serious pressure on the final tour.
Baldassarri, gunning for his first win since 2016, lunged at the Sky VR46 rider into Turn 15, but ran wide and gave Bagnaia just enough of a buffer to get across the line to secure his and his team's first win in the class.
Marquez recovered the closing stages to complete the podium, with Pasini a second adrift in fourth and a further three ahead of Oliveira. Binder missed out on top KTM honours by just 0.048 seconds.
Marcel Schrotter pipped Intact GP teammate Xavi Vierge to seventh, while Luca Marini and Jorge Navarro completed the top 10.
Joan Mir finished his rookie Moto2 outing 11th on the sister Marc VDS Kalex, with Remy Gardner, Hector Barbera, Simone Corsi and Dominique Aegerter taking the remaining points.
Sunday's race proved disastrous for the CGBM KTM squad, as Sam Lowes crashed out while fighting for the top 10, and team-mate Iker Lecuona was forced to retire with a mechanical issue.
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