Sergio Garcia secured his maiden win in Moto2 as he managed proceedings at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas to beat Joe Roberts in a tense finish.
Garcia fended off the closing Roberts in the closing exchanges, with Fermin Aldeguer overcoming a poor start to claim his first podium of the season.
An opening corner mistake from polesitter Aron Canet and Aldeguer on the first lap allowed Garcia to take the lead and he never looked back from then.
Canet’s mistake at the opening turn saw him drop back to a disastrous 10th, with Aldeguer falling back to seventh on the road and ruining his win chances.
Garcia pounced to take the lead ahead of hometown hero Roberts, with Dennis Foggia rising up to third from seventh on the grid.
CFMoto Inde Aspar Team’s Jake Dixon started 14th on the grid but leapfrogged up the standings to come in fourth after the opening lap.
Manuel Gonzalez, who was third in the championship heading into the race, jump-started from ninth and was punished with a long-lap penalty on two occasions.
On the third lap, Canet on his Fantic bike capitalised on Ai Ogura and Jeremy Alcoba’s Kalex bike battle to leapfrog past both to put himself in eighth place.
However, Darryn Binder’s attempt to claim some much-needed points from the back of the grid ended on the fourth lap of the race.
Despite his incredible start, Dixon lost the front end at Turn 1 on Lap 5, which then allowed Canet to gain a further place in his quest to haul back to the front.
The top three of Garcia, Roberts, and Foggia remained out in front and were pushing away from the rest of the field.
With team-mates Aldeguer and Alonso Lopez following closely behind, laps six and seven saw the pair squabbling back and forth for fourth place.
A great team-mate battle saw several overtakes on Turn 5, 6, 11 and 12 which allowed Foggia in third to gain a couple-second advantage as the race approached its second half.
Adeguer’s Beta Tools Speed Up won the duel and he closed in on what would be his first podium of the season.
A crucial overtake on Foggia with five laps to go put himself into the podium spots and he then capitalised on a Roberts’ mistake to get ahead of his rival.
However, the American Racing Team star recovered extremely well to make an audacious move back past the Spaniard and recover second place on the road.
In an all-or-nothing approach, he gave everything he could to catch Garcia but fell short at the final hurdle.
Garcia’s win puts him now top of the championship, with himself and Roberts finishing over three seconds clear of Aldeguer in third.
Further behind Alonso Lopez endured a quiet race, with Marcos Ramirez putting both America Racing bikes in the top five.
Despite being in podium contention in the first half of the race, Foggia lost grip in his tyres during the closing exchanges and had to settle for sixth.
Further down was a close battle between Ogura, Alcoba, and Canet, with the latter penalised 0.396s after he was adjudged to have run wide at Turn 6 and gained an advantage.
Celstino Vietti rounded off his COTA race with another top-10 finish to add to his tally this season, with Tony Arbolinio finishing half a second adrift of the Italian.
Despite starting fourth on the grid, Albert Arenas fell down the grid spectacularly to finish in a disappointing 12th for the QJMotor Gresini outfit.
Miguel Gonzalez’ long lap penalty from his jump start meant he had to settle for 13th, with Diogo Moreira and Filip Salac rounding off the point-scoring positions.
