Luca Ghiotto coasts to Misano race two win

Photo: Fast Lane Promotion

In an eventful afternoon race, it was Prema Powerteam?s Luca Ghiotto who took the checkered flag first at Misano, scoring his third win of the season and clawing himself back into championship contention as his main title rivals failed to score.

The race started with no alterations at the front as Bruno Bonifacio ran in the lead, followed by Antonio Fuoco, until the duo made contact into the Carro corner, which caused both drivers to retire and brought out the safety car. Ghiotto, having inherited the lead, had a very good restart, and opened up a gap to the rest of the pack, which allowed him to secure a relatively comfortable victory and the fastest lap of the race.

The podium was completed by Egor Orudzhev and Kevin Jorg in second and third respectively as they continued to battle throughout race two following their wheel-to-wheel fights on Saturday. Orudzhev managed to pull a late overtake over Jorg with two laps to go and maintained second to score his first podium of the season.

Fourth was taken by Hans Villemi, who overtook Simon Gachet in the closing stages of the race, with the Frenchman settling for fifth. Russian driver Konstantin Tereshchenko ran in fourth early on but sustained damage from contact, ending up down in 20^th place.

Ukyo Sasahara got sixth place, his best finish of the season, as Kevin Gilardoni took seventh with Russian Denis Korneev in eighth, managing his first points of the season. Joffrey De Narda and Luke Chudleigh completed the top ten.

?I had a very good start and I was almost able to make a move move on Fuoco. Then, seeing that him and Bonifacio were fighting, I decided to play the waiting game in order to profit from that one right moment. Then, after my team-mates collided, I profited from the situation and pushed as hard as possible to increase my margin all the way through the finish”, said race winner Ghiotto.

The stewards have decided to penalize Bonifacio with a five-place grid drop for race one at Mugello following his collision with Fuoco.

After ten races in five rounds, Fuoco leads the championship with 159 points. His teammates Bonifacio and Ghiotto still present a threat for the lead with 138 and 134 points respectively, while the top non-Prema runner Jorg is in fourth with only 64 points.

Race results