Pedro Acosta flew to a third Moto2 win of the season at Mugello as he closed on runner-up Tony Arbolino’s points advantage.
The Spaniard managed to get ahead of pole-man Aron Canet on the run to Turn 1 as well as bat off the advances of an aggressive Sam Lowes to establish himself at the head of the field early on, though Speed Up’s Alonso Lopez soon began to heap on the pressure having taken second by taking out Lowes towards the end of the opening tour.
Lopez’s victory challenge was therefore swiftly ended as he copped a penalty for his part in the Lowes clash, the three-time 2023 rostrum man dropping significant time after having to take a second long-lap for running wide in his original punishment.
Arbolino was the main beneficiary of the calamities ahead as he became Acosta’s closest challenger, though the Marc VDS man ultimately lacked the pace of the leader as he slowly but surely was dropped across the remainder of the contest – eventually taking the chequered flag 6.1 seconds adrift after 19 laps.
The battle for the final spot on the podium went down to the very final lap as Canet began to fade having not long prior taken the spot away from Gresini’s Filip Salac, with Jake Dixon charging towards the Pons racer having also got the better of Salac.
The GasGas pilot caught Canet at the perfect moment and managed to slipstream alongside him on the run to Turn 1 on the very final lap, the Briton pulling off a well-judged move to snatch away the position and secure it to the line.
Celestino Vietti meanwhile enjoyed a spirited late-race attack having looked after his rubber effectively, passing the recovering Lopez to round off the top five.
Salac eventually took seventh having struggled for speed across the closing tours, while Manuel Gonzalez claimed eighth on his Yamaha VR46 Mastercamp entry.
Somkiat Chantra made progress late in the game to take ninth on his Honda Team Asia-run Kalex, while Sergio Garcia completed the top ten having run as high as fifth during the mid-point of the race.
Mattia Pasini ended up 11th having run well in his first wildcard outing of the year for the Fieten Olie outfit, the Italian heading Italtrans’ Joe Roberts after the American struggled to match his strong qualifying speed on Sunday.
Acosta’s success sees him close to within 20 points of Arbolino heading into next weekend’s German Grand Prix at the Sachsenring, with Lopez remaining in third overall but now a distant 48 adrift of the series lead.
