MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The intermediate class race offered a bit of everything at Mugello, starting with a dominant display from championship leader Manu Gonzalez - who effortlessly converted pole into a third victory of the season - and following with a great fight through the field from rival Celestino Vietti, who went from 16th on the grid up to the second step of the podium. A strong Dani Holgado eventually got demoted to third on the final lap to complete the podium line-up. 

Gonzalez had made an excellent launch off the line to stay ahead of fellow front row starter Filip Salac, while Holgado got ahead of Alex Escrig and Ivan Ortola’s fast start from 10th on the grid immediately saw him challenge Escrig as well. Alonso Lopez and Collin Veijer kept close to the leaders, while Izan Guevara got stuck in 8th despite making a quick launch initially. Ayumu Sasaki and Senna Agius completed the top 10 on the opening lap, with David Alonso, Tony Arbolino and Vietti knocking at the doors early on. 

While Gonzalez continued to lead the way alongside Salac, Ortola and Holgado, an incident between Escrig and Lopez on the second lap took the former out into the gravel at turn 3 and left Lopez nearly two seconds behind the leading four. The Spaniard soon surrendered the lead of the chasing group due to a long lap penalty for causing the crash, leaving Agius, Guevara, Veijer and Sasaki to attempt to reel in the leaders. Once the penalty was served on lap 7, Lopez dropped to 8th place - helped somewhat by Sasaki crashing out of the group ahead - but found himself in the path of a rapid Vietti, who had picked up the pace after some early mistakes. 

Back at the front, another gap started to stretch after the first handful of laps, one second separating the leading duo of Gonzalez and Ortola from Salac and Holgado, and that gap continued to grow to three seconds by lap 10 - the order staying the same going into the second half of the race. Meanwhile, Agius was stuck in a pretty cosy 5th, two seconds behind the podium battle and two ahead of the next group now led by Vietti. The Italian had settled the direct battle with rival Guevara by lap 10, but the two stayed close together at that stage, with Lopez in tow. 

The first change at the front came at the start of lap 12, when Holgado finally made his move on Salac to claim 3rd, but the victory battle seemed to be a distant hope, as a lightning-quick couple of laps from Gonzalez put him two seconds ahead of Ortola by lap 13. Ortola wasn’t helping his situation either, as he dropped his pace significantly and the advantage of two and a half seconds over Holgado started to look a lot less comfortable. Holgado closed to only a second and a half for the final handful of laps, and while he continued to push to make it a fight for second, Salac was left with Agius hot on his tail. 

While Gonzalez started the penultimate lap over six seconds ahead of the field, Holgado finally made his move on Ortola at the first corner but that was the smallest of Ortola’s problems as he immediately stopped with a technical issue. That suddenly opened the battle for third, where Agius had easily deposed a fading Salac but the Australian had bigger issues to contend with next, in the shape of a fast Vietti. The Italian made amends with turn 10 as he picked the scene of his crash on Saturday to depose Agius of third on the penultimate lap and then attack Holgado for second on the final lap. Agius also smelled blood and launched an attack on Holgado at the final corner, but the Spaniard got him back in the drag race to the finish line and secured third by less than two hundredths of a second. Salac settled for 5th, while Lopez fended off Guevara for 6th and Barry Baltus completed a great recovery from 19th on the grid to finish 8th. Veijer and Deniz Öncü completed the top 10 positions, while the remaining points went to Arbolino, Adrian Huertas, Jose Antonio Rueda, Joe Roberts and Zonta van den Goorbergh - Alonso fading quite dramatically in the closing stages down in 18th. 

Gonzalez’s masterpiece gives him a 34.5 points advantage over Guevara in the world championship standings and 36.5 over Vietti. Agius and Holgado complete the top 5 on 51.5 and 64.5 deficits respectively, while Alonso loses some more ground down in 6th - trailing the leader by 71.5 points. 

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