Italtrans Racing Team rider Diogo Moreira cruised to a comfortable and dominant victory in Austria in Moto2.
The Brazilian secured his second victory of the season, marking another strong performance in the Moto2 intermediate class.
CFMoto rider Holgado maintained the holeshot into Turn 1, but Moreira secured the lead at the end of the opening lap.
Senna Agius suffered a tough highside at Turn 2, resulting in Alonso Lopez having to take evasive action and dropping back.
Out front, the Brazilian rider stretched a 0.3s by the end of Lap 2, with the Italtrans rider bidding for a second win in the intermediate class.
He posted back-to-back fastest laps on Lap 3 and Lap 4, but the gap didn’t increase any further until the end of Lap 5.
Dramatically, that same lap, championship leader Manual Gonzalez dropped back to 14th after occupying the higher positions.
His bike slowed down dramatically down the straight between Turns 3 and 4, but got going again. The issues reoccurred two laps later, before retiring due to a technical issue on Lap 7.
As the race approached the midway point, riders weren’t overtaking, but only 0.5s separated the lead trio consisting of Moreira, Holgado and Vietti.
On Lap 14, Alonso caught up to the back of Vietti before rising to third heading into Turn 3. Vietti responded later in the lap, but Alonso completed a successful move on Lap 15 as the Italian was handed a long-lap penalty for exceeding track limits.
Vietti dropped down to fifth after his long lap penalty behind fellow countryman Tony Arbolino.
The leading trio of Moreira and the CFMoto duo, Holgado and Alonso, were keeping the Brazilian at bay, but the latter threw away his podium chance with a crash at Turn 9.
Vietti continued to show rapid speed to overtake Arbolino almost immediately, putting him back in the final spot on the podium.
Out front, Moreira upped the ante as he established a 1.4s advantage over Holgado, before winning by 2.3s.
His win boosts his title hopes following Gonzalez’s retirement, while Holgado secured his first Moto2 podium in his rookie season.
Vietti’s long-lap penalty issuing proved to be meaningless as he secured the final podium spot, defeating Alberto Arenas and Arbolino in the closing stages.
Ivan Ortola won in a last-lap battle with Barry Baltus, Colin Veijer, and Izan Guevara, where all four riders were separated by less than half a second.
Championship contender Aron Canet had a quiet race as he rounded off the top ten, followed by Filip Salac, Marcos Ramirez, and Ayumu Sasaki.
Daniel Munoz produced his best result in 14th, one second ahead of Darryn Binder, who closed out the points.
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