Dennis Foggia flew to a second win in the last three events in the San Marino Grand Prix after holding off Jaume Masia, while series leader Sergio Garcia crashed out.
Foggia put in a canny race as he stalked early leader Izan Guevara across the opening half of the contest before dispatching the GasGas rider, though the Italian looked to not possess quite as much speed as Guevara as the leading quartet slowly became a sextet.
Guevara elected to remain behind Foggia with a view to attacking the Leopard Racing pilot in the closing laps, though a charging Masia scuppered his plan by moving clear with just a couple tours left to run – Deniz Oncu compounding his problems by snatching third too.
Masia’s chances of victory were dashed though as he fought with Oncu on the final tour, allowing Foggia the crucial few tenths-of-a-second he needed to remain out in front.
Guevara meanwhile looked to try and at least salvage second by diving through on Oncu first at Turn 12 before then scything through on Masia, though the Ajo rider snapped straight back into the slow Turn 14 right-hander to secure second.
Foggia was left to take the chequered flag 0.289s clear of Masia and Guevara who completed the rostrum, while Oncu was forced to settle for fourth right in the wheel tracks of the GasGas ace.
Series leader Garcia meanwhile was left out of the tussle for supremacy as a result of an early crash at Turn 4 while pushing too hard trying to recover from an error, the Spaniard losing the front of his machine and dropping a lap by the time he got back up to speed.
He was ultimately black flagged for getting involved in the battle for the lower end of the top ten, a DNF that sees him drop to 11 points behind team-mate Guevara and only 24 markers clear of the resurgent Foggia.
Daniel Holgado rounded off the top five on the second Ajo entry ahead of Tatsuki Suzuki on the sister Leopard Honda, with Diogo Moreira holding onto seventh in the end ahead of Ivan Ortola.
John McPhee claimed ninth on the sole remaining MAX Racing bike after Austrian GP winning team-mate Ayumu Sasaki was taken out by Nicola Cararo on the opening circulation, while Stefano Nepa closed out the top ten.
David Munoz had to make do with 12th after dropping back in the latter stages, the rookie at one point looking like he could challenge for a third podium finish of the year.
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