Leopard Racing’s Joan Mir charged through the field to take his second win of the season ahead of John McPhee and Jorge Martin.
The Spanish rider was caught out by the change of weather in the final stages of qualifying yesterday and was left with work to do from 16th on the grid. At the start, Mir was roughed up and only made up three place in four laps.
At the front, pole man McPhee locked horns with Gresini duo Martin and Fabio Di Giannantonio, as well as Sky Racing VR46’s Nicolo Bulega and EG 0,0 Honda’s Aron Canet.
As the race wore on, the medium-shod Canet and Bulega faded away, whilst Mir had brilliantly fought his way to the front of the pack by the seventh lap. With the final stages looming, the fight for the win was between Mir, McPhee, Martin, Philipp Oettl and Andrea Migno.
Qatar winner Mir tried his best to eke out an advantage as they roared across the line to start the final lap, the Spaniard opening up a gap of just over three tenths. On the run into Turn 5, Mir crucially held onto the lead, whilst McPhee pounced on Martin.
The Scotsman, chasing his second grand prix victory, tucked right in behind Mir as they approached the final corner. But, the British Talent Team rider ran into Turn 13 a fraction too hot, allowing Mir to safely take the chequered flag in first.
McPhee, by just 0.078s, held onto second from Martin, with Oettl and Migno rounding out the top five. Mir’s Leopard team-mate Livio Loi prevailed in a bruising dogfight in the latter stages to take sixth ahead of Romano Fenati, who was cleared of any wrongdoing in a collision with Niccolo Antonelli at Turn 7 on the second lap.
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Tatsuki Suzuki capped off a strong weekend for the SIC58 team with a career-best eighth ahead of RBA’s Juanfran Guevara and Honda Team Asia rookie Kaito Toba.
Canet dropped to 11th at the flag, with Darry Binder, Bulega, Marcos Ramirez and the sister SIC58 Honda of Tony Arbolino completing the points paying positions.
A frantic handful of laps in the second half of the race saw a number of riders hit the deck. Bulega nudged Di Giannantonio wide at Turn 5, causing the Gresini rider to crash out. The luckless Enea Bastianini was caught out by this incident and tucked the front of his Honda at the same corner.
The Italian remounted to cross the line 27th and last, whilst Gabriel Rodrigo and Lorenzo Dalla Porta also failed to make the finish.
