Enea Bastianini finally ended his agonising wait for a first Grand Prix victory in fine style at Misano. The local favourite, born in Rimini, saw off the challenge of Miguel Oliveira on the final lap and with Danny Kent finishing down in sixth, has reignited his championship hopes.
From an early stage, a leading group of seven had broken away at the front of the field and it appeared as though Kent was playing it cool at the rear of it, waiting for an opportunity to attack in the closing laps. Any such plan unravelled though with ten laps to go when race direction imposed a penalty on the championship leader, forcing him to drop a position for exceeding track limits too often. With the chase group over four seconds behind him, Kent’s penalty not only relegated him to eighth but destroyed any hopes he had of contending for the victory.
Leopard’s fortunes took another nosedive moments later with Efren Vazquez crashing out of fifth and with two key rivals out of the reckoning, it was left to five riders to dispute the victory. Romano Fenati and Brad Binder both led on occasions but their challenges faded with three to go, putting all of KTM’s hopes on the shoulders of Oliveira against a pair of home chargers on Hondas.
The Portuguese rider lost the advantage halfway around the penultimate lap as Niccolo Antonelli set his sights on a second career win but Bastianini, chasing his first, timed his attack to perfection and grabbed the lead back at turn eleven on the final lap, leaving his rivals no chance to respond. As a result, the Gresini rider clinched a maiden Grand Prix win by three hundredths of a second with Oliveira pipping Antonelli to second. Fenati beat Binder to fourth while Kent salvaged sixth after his mid-race penalty.
Alexis Masbou took seventh ahead of Francesco Bagnaia and Isaac Vinales while Philipp Oettl completed the top ten.
MOTO3 GP TIM DI SAN MARINO E DELLA RIVIERA DI RIMINI: RACE RESULT
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