In a gripping San Marino Moto2 Grand Prix, Celestino Vietti of Italy, riding a Kalex, edged out the championship leader Pedro Acosta from Spain by a razor-thin margin of 0.080 seconds in the official classification. The finale was a showcase of relentless pace and tactical mastery, with Vietti pressing hard across the final laps to secure the narrow victory, while Acosta battled through a testing session marked by gusty winds that unsettled rivals and created dramatic overtaking opportunities on the Misano Adriatico circuit.
Misano delivered a tense afternoon for the top contenders. Acosta, who had cruised at the front for much of the weekend, faced a series of challenges from the field as competitors capitalized on the wind-blown track to push harder in the closing stretches. Vietti, meanwhile, found his best time on the last lap, sealing a result that put him in strong contention for a second pole position of the season, with Acosta and Manuel Gonzalez, known as Manugas, completing a proud third for Spain in this event—the first time a Spaniard stood on the podium in this race at Misano.
From the second row, Dutch rider Bo Bendsneyder, together with Italian riders Tony Arbolino, Manugas González, and Zonta Van der Goorbergh, emerged as the main movers in the middle pack, signaling a shift in the race narrative and keeping the second-class fight highly competitive. Arbolino, seeking to prove his speed in the second quarter, aimed to position himself to challenge Acosta in the later stages, a plan that required a sharp, clean start and consistent lap times through the middle portion of the race.
Guevara, racing in Kalex equipment, began from the 19th slot, while compatriots Fermin Aldeguer and other Spanish riders were scattered across the field, with Dols and Gomez also trying to carve out favorable positions. The early phase saw attrition and rapid regrouping as teams adjusted strategies to the wind and evolving weather conditions, making every corner and straight a test of nerve and nerve of execution.
Despite the turbulence in the opening class, Manugas González leveraged the tempo set by Vietti and Mattia Pasini to keep the pursuit lively. The race saw Acosta, still the overall world leader, navigating mid-pack positions at times as the timetable shuffled and the pace intensified, with Vietti taking an early lead and then clinging to it through a high-stakes sequence of laps.
Vietti seized the initiative on a subsequent lap, moving ahead of González by a margin of seven thousandths of a second before the dynamics of the track allowed González to reclaim ground later in the session. Yet the late stages delivered a ferocious finish as Vietti regrouped, reasserted his control, and secured pole position for the second time this season with a performance that underscored his ascending form, finishing ahead of Acosta and González in a podium-packed outcome.
Aron Canet settled for fourth place, with Mattia Pasini just behind in fifth. In a tight cluster, Alonso Lopez, American Joe Roberts, British rider Sam Lowes, and Arbolino fought to carve out strong results, all delivering competitive stints across the race. In a separate struggle, Filip Salac of the Czech Republic claimed fourth in the race standings, while Somkiat Chantra of Thailand and Zonta Van der Goorbergh from the Netherlands followed closely in the order, highlighting a diverse and competitive field. English racer Jake Dixon endured a difficult session, clawing his way to fourteenth place after a crash at the end of the session, with M. Arcos Ramirez and Jeremy Alcoba also in the mix further back in the field.