Alonso Lopez cruised to a maiden Moto2 victory at Misano having led every lap, while title contender Celestino Vietti suffered his second crash in as many races.
Lopez made a lightning start to immediately sling-shot past pole-man Vietti on the run to Turn 1 before swiftly building up a lead over GasGas’ Albert Arenas, who also managed to slip past the VR46 rider.
The Spaniard was never headed past this point as he controlled proceedings out in front, his only real challenge coming in the shape of Pons racer Canet who briefly looked like he could run Lopez down before the leader began to stretch his legs once more.
Lopez ultimately took the chequered flag at the head of the field for the first time by 1.6 seconds ahead of Canet, while Augusto Fernandez wrestled the series lead back from Ai Ogura after getting the better of Arenas for third in the closing laps.
Arenas began to struggle for grip as the race entered its climactic stages and did everything he could to hold off the Ajo pilot to score a maiden intermediate class rostrum, though it wasn’t to be and he was forced to settle for fourth ahead of Ogura, who came home a distant fifth.
Pedro Acosta recovered from 13th on the grid to take sixth ahead of Tony Arbolino’s Marc VDS-run Kalex, with Somkiat Chantra eighth on the sister Honda Team Asia entry.
Joe Roberts was ninth for Italtrans while the top ten was completed by Jeremy Alcoba, who profited from a long-lap penalty for Intact GP team-mate Marcel Schrotter.
Vietti was the main casualty of a race hit by severe attrition, the VR46 man crashing at Turn 4 while running fourth – a second straight DNF that sees him slip to 41 points adrift of Fernandez with only six races remaining.
GasGas duo Jake Dixon and Mattia Pasini also failed to see the chequered flag after crashing out, the former going down at Turn 2 on the opening lap while the latter came unstuck at Turn 4 while running well in the top ten just past mid-distance.
The second Speed Up entry of Fermin Aldeguer also failed to see the finish after the Spaniard went down at Turn 1 from seventh early on.
Fernandez holds a four point advantage over Ogura, while Canet moves into third at the behest of Vietti to the tune of just a single point.
