Manuel Gonzalez completed a dominant performance by sealing a lights-to-flag victory in the Mugello Moto2 race.
The championship leader extended his advantage in the standings to 34.5 points after taking a dominant victory, winning by a margin of 5.327s.
Polesitter Gonzalez made by far the best start and was able to hold onto the lead at Turn 1 despite running wide.
Aron Canet was out of position and made contact with Xabi Zurutuza, as both riders exited the race on the first lap along with Taiyo Furusato, who crashed on his own at the end of the lap.
Gonzalez continued to lead comfortably from Filip Salac in second, whilst Ivan Ortola and Dani Holgado headed forward into third and fourth respectively.
Alex Escrig outperformed his Forward machinery by qualifying on the front row but dropped back in the early stages to fifth, and duelled with Alonso Lopez for fifth.
The pair made contact on Lap 2 after Lopez left Escrig no room on the exit of Turn 3, as the Forward rider crashed out of the race while Lopez was awarded a long lap penalty for the incident.
After the early drama, the race settled with Gonzalez still leading but with a fast Ortola chasing behind, though the pair managed to break away from the fight for third.
However, Gonzalez started to use his reserve pace and managed to build a gap between himself and Ortola, as his compatriot was unable to keep up and dropped over a second behind.
As Gonzalez built his lead at the front, the gap between Holgado, Salac and the chasing Senna Agius came down in the closing stages, with the Australian the fastest of the trio.
Holgado built a bit of a gap to the pair behind, as Agius made his move on Salac with two laps remaining to give him faint hope of a podium with Holgado closing on Ortola for second.
Celestino Vietti also had late race pace and passed Salac for fifth, and stalked Agius on the penultimate lap of the race to weigh up a move.
Ahead of the pair, Holgado passed Ortola for second place before the long-time second-place runner had to retire due to a gearshift problem.
Ortola’s misfortunes promoted the battle between Vietti and Agius into a fight for the last podium place, with the Italian using his experience of the Mugello circuit to tuck under the Australian and take third.
On the final lap, the pair closed in on Holgado ahead, with Vietti taking an unlikely second place after running wide in the early stages whilst running 10th.
Agius attempted to follow the Italian through at the penultimate corner, but lost his drive down to the finish line in a close fight for third.
However, it was undeniably a dominant performance from Gonzalez that saw him take the chequered flag by over five seconds.
Vietti completed his strong ride for second place, while Holgado outdragged Agius to the line to round out the podium in third.
Salac completed the top five, as Lopez finished sixth despite serving a long lap penalty.
Izan Guevara lost further ground in the championship after only mustering seventh ahead of Barry Baltus in eighth.
Collin Veijer had a consistent race in ninth, while Deniz Oncu produced some late overtakes to complete the top 10.
Tony Arbolino took the flag in 11th, with Adrian Huertas 12th and Jose Antonio Rueda in 13th.
The final points positions were fought between Joe Roberts and Zonta van den Goorbergh, with the American taking 14th and the Dutchman in 15th.





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