Misano Moto2: Bagnaia extends points lead with comfortable win

Starting from pole, Bagnaia outbraked Marcel Schrotter to lead into Turn 1, and quickly built a lead of a second.

Behind Bagnaia, Mattia Pasini moved into second and the duo both spent the first half of the race on their own, with Miguel Oliveira making an impressive comeback from ninth on the grid and running third as early as lap two.

Pasini maintained the gap at around a second for 10 laps before he started losing further ground, with Oliveira and Schrotter catching up to the Italtrans rider.

Both riders soon passed Pasini, but Bagnaia was out of reach as he led by nearly four seconds.

Bagnaia eventually took his sixth win of the season by 3.1s, extending his points lead to eight, while Oliveira held off a late charge from Schrotter.

Schrotter tried to steal second on the last lap with a desperate lunge at Turn 14, but Oliveira held on.

Pasini also came under pressure from Joan Mir, the duo trading places a couple of times, but the Italian kept fourth.

Lorenzo Baldassarri came from outside the top 10 to finish sixth, followed by Fabio Quartararo and Brad Binder.

Jorge Navarro had a strong first half of the race, climbing as high as fifth, but was soon ordered to drop a place due to track limits and he lost further positions to settle for ninth, ahead of Xavi Vierge.

Romano Fenati was black-flagged for irresponsible behaviour as he reached over to the brake lever of Stefano Manzi's bike in retaliation for a previous overtaking attempt from Manzi, which resulted in both riders running wide. Manzi later retired with a crash.

Jesko Raffin, who was denied a full-time Moto2 ride in 2018 due to a "lack of consistent good results", impressed in his return to the series by taking 15th despite having to start from the pitlane due to a mechanical issue.

Alex Marquez was tapped by Augusto Fernandez on the opening lap and fell, eventually only taking 18th.

British duo Danny Kent and Sam Lowes, as well as Tetsuta Nagashima also crashed, while Bagnaia's VR46 teammate Luca Marini retired with smoke coming out of the rear of his bike.

Race results

Cla	Rider	Bike	Laps	Gap
1	Francesco Bagnaia	Kalex	25	41'02.106
2	Miguel Oliveira	KTM	25	3.108
3	Marcel Schrotter	Kalex	25	4.094
4	Mattia Pasini	Kalex	25	6.320
5	Joan Mir	Kalex	25	6.728
6	Lorenzo Baldassarri	Kalex	25	9.470
7	Fabio Quartararo	Speed Up	25	12.068
8	Brad Binder	KTM	25	12.134
9	Jorge Navarro	Kalex	25	17.425
10	Xavi Vierge	Kalex	25	21.986
11	Simone Corsi	Kalex	25	24.701
12	Remy Gardner	Tech 3	25	25.582
13	Dominique Aegerter	KTM	25	25.760
14	Andrea Locatelli	Kalex	25	26.718
15	Jesko Raffin	Kalex	25	31.168
16	Joe Roberts	NTS	25	38.707
17	Steven Odendaal	NTS	25	39.432
18	Alex Marquez	Kalex	25	39.551
19	Iker Lecuona	KTM	25	40.436
20	Bo Bendsneyder	Tech 3	25	41.814
21	Niki Tuuli	Kalex	25	48.043
22	Khairul Idham Pawi	Kalex	25	53.390
23	Jules Danilo	Kalex	25	1'05.605
24	Federico Fuligni	Kalex	25	1'16.602
25	Xavi Cardelus	Kalex	25	1'31.250
	Augusto Fernandez	Kalex	21	4 Laps
	Stefano Manzi	Suter	18	7 Laps
	Tetsuta Nagashima	Kalex	15	10 Laps
	Sheridan Morais	Kalex	13	12 Laps
	Sam Lowes	KTM	11	14 Laps
	Luca Marini	Kalex	9	16 Laps
	Danny Kent	Speed Up	1	24 Laps
DSQ	Romano Fenati	Kalex	18