Jorge Martin wins again at Misano ahead of Marco Bezzecchi and Francesco Bagnaia
Like the MotoGP sprint it was polesitter Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia that made a break for it at the head of the field.
Swarming all over the back of Martin, Bagnaia shaped up for an overtake at the final corner but Martin resisted.
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As Marco Bezzecchi closed in on the leading duo at the start of lap two, Brad Binder made quick progress as he passed Dani Pedrosa for P4.
After setting the fastest lap of the race on lap two, Binder had it taken away from Bezzecchi who was very close to Bagnaia and Martin.
Bezzecchi then made a mistake at turn ten which allowed the top two to increase their lead. The Italian put his error behind him very quickly as he took second place away from Bagnaia at turn eight [lap five].
But Bezzecchi made another mistake at turn ten which gifted second spot back to the world champion.
Finding the pace too hot to keep up with, Binder’s impressive effort came to an end as he crashed at turn 14.
The mistake was not race-ending as he managed to get back underway, however, KTM’s day got even worse as Michele Pirro took out Jack Miller at turn four.
As Pedrosa began to catch the leading trio by a quarter of a second per lap, another crash took place as Joan Mir went down at turn four.
Once a two secon deficit, Pedrosa closed to within five tenths of Bezzecchi before a mistake on lap 13 saw the gap grow back above one second.
Pedrosa then started losing more time as the gap grew to 1.6 seconds come the end of lap 16.
One lap later and Martin finally broke Bagnaia’s resistance as he set a personal best lap time to pull clear by over a second.
The Spaniard’s lead then became two seconds on lap 19 as Bezzecchi went through on Bagnaia at turn eight.
With six laps to go Bagnaia made a mistake at turn 14 which allowed Pedrosa to close in on the factory Ducati rider.
More pressure was applied from Pedrosa in the final two laps but Bagnaia held strong again for his second P3 finish of the weekend behind Martin and Bezzecchi.
