At the end of lap two, Marini started to make his way to the front, first moving past Canet for second place. But World Championship leader Nagashima was keen to not let the Italian get the jump on him and he quickly followed him through into third place and, as a result, the rookie was nudged back to fourth. Marini hit the front with 20 laps to go thanks to an extremely smooth move on Martin through Turn 8 but once again it didn’t take long for Nagashima to stay on the tail of Marini by diving past his teammate Martin at the final turn on the very same lap.

Now in the lead, the 22-year-old decided it was time to pull the pin and see if anyone could match his pace. He immediately pulled out a half a second advantage in just one lap as the lead group instantly began to stretch. Marini’s increase in pace at the front was simply too much for some behind to live with, as teammate Bezzecchi went down out of third place just moments after squeezing in front of Martin at Turn 8. Then Schrotter crashed out too one lap later, this time out fifth place at Turn 11. It was beginning to turn into a race of attrition in the baking hot, tricky conditions that the Circuito de Jerez-Angel Nieto was throwing up.

13 laps now remaining and questions were beginning to be asked of Marini at the front. Were we starting to see a repeat of Qatar as Nagashima set a new fastest lap of the race and began to signal he had the late-race pace to bring the fight to the Italian at the front. The laps ticked by with Nagashima only managing to close in by half a tenth lap after lap, as Marini responded. However, with six laps remaining Martin was coming under all sorts of pressure from Lowes, with the Brit cutting the gap down to less than a second in the fight for the final podium place.

Nagashima reeled Marini in by 0.439 seconds in a single lap with just five now left and suddenly it looked certain that the fight for the victory was going to ignite in dramatic fashion in the closing stages. But the gap remained at just over a second as the laps ticked by towards the finish and in the end, Nagashima rightly backed off for a comfortable 20 points and a 17 point World Championship lead.