Franco Morbidelli followed up his maiden victory in Qatar with a second consecutive win in Argentina after a race-long battle with Alex Marquez. The Italian proved too strong for his Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS team-mate with Marquez crashing on the final lap as he attempted to give chase, handing second to KTM’s Miguel Oliveira.
Oliveira had high hopes having started from his maiden pole position in the intermediate class but Morbidelli and Marquez gapped the Portuguese rider early on, a deficit Miguel proved unable to recover from. Instead the fight for victory came down between the two team-mates and despite briefly slipstreaming past, Alex found himself chasing heading into the last lap.
The pressure eventually told on the former Moto3 champion though who suffered a nasty highside exiting turn seven, taking him out of the points altogether, and leaving Morbidelli clear to take his second win out of two in 2017. Oliveira was promoted to second while Thomas Luthi, who looked set to finish fourth after a lonely afternoon, claimed a fortunate rostrum.
Lorenzo Baldassarri finished fourth from tenth on the grid while Xavi Vierge continued his sensational recent form aboard the Tech 3 Mistral in fifth, the team’s best intermediate class result for four and a half years. Simone Corsi opened Speed Up’s account for the season with sixth while rookie duo Francesco Bagnaia and Brad Binder shone to finish seventh and ninth, either side of Sandro Cortese on the leading Suter.
Moto2 Gran Premio Motul de la Republica Argentina: Race Result
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