Who else but Jorge Martin? Yes, the 2018 Moto3 World Championship leader took yet another pole position, his sixth of the season and fourteenth of his career. That said, it hasn’t been the usual dominance from Martin this weekend, despite admitting that he enjoys the Sachsenring a lot. That said, it is tough to bet against the Spaniard for the race win tomorrow, as he seeks to extend his two-point championship lead.
Jorge Martin. Image courtesy of Honda Pro Racing
Lining up alongside the Gresini Honda on tomorrow’s grid are Marcos Ramirez and Enea Bastianini. Ramirez finished on the podium in Germany last year, and so will harbour hopes of enjoying a good result tomorrow. Meanwhile, Bastianini is coming off the back of his second consecutive podium, and, lying just twenty-one points off the championship lead, will be looking to close the deficit he currently suffers to Martin.
Jaume Masia completed what was a very positive day for the Bester Capital Dubai team, by taking fourth on the grid – his best qualifying of the season. Aron Canet, who like Bastianini will be aiming to reduce his gap to the top of the championship tomorrow, starts between Masia and Tony Arbolino on the second row of the grid.
Marco Bezzecchi qualified seventh. His pace has not been anything fantastic this weekend, but Bezzecchi has a tendency to race better than he practices so we will see what he can do tomorrow. John McPhee and Ayumu Sasaki join the Argentine GP winner on the third row of the grid.
Fabio Di Giannantonio rounded out the top ten in qualifying, and will start from the head of the fourth row tomorrow. Alongside him will be Albert Arenas and Gabriel Rodrigo.
Despite being incredibly fast at times, Philipp Oettl could only manage thirteenth place on the grid for his home Grand Prix, and alongside him on the fifth row of the grid will be Darryn Binder’s impressive replacement Raul Fernandez, and Tatsuki Suzuki.
Niccolo Antonelli will start from sixteenth tomorrow, alongside Lorenzo Dalla Porta and Adam Norrodin on the sixth row of the grid.
The wildcard, Ai Ogura, has been severely impressive this weekend, which makes nineteenth sound quite bad, but ultimately he was only eight tenths away from Martin’s pole time; and starting alongside Alonso Lopez and Jakub Kornfeil on row seven means he is in some good company.
Kazuki Masaki starts from twenty-second tomorrow, ahead of a disappointing Nicolo Bulega who has looked faster than row eight this weekend, but with such a difficult qualifying has probably ruined what could be his best chance of getting on the podium this season. Kaito Toba joins Masaki and Bulega on the eighth row.
It has been an awful weekend for Andrea Migno, as it has for Dennis Foggia. They both start from row nine, in 25th and 27th respectively. In between them is the wildcard Luca Grunwald who has not disgraced himself whatsoever this weekend, although being 26th on the grid in his home Grand Prix perhaps says a bit about the quality of the SSP300 field, in the standings of which he lies second.
The final row consists of Livio Loi’s replacement, Vicente Perez, Nakarin Atriatphuvapat and Stefano Nepa.
The 2018 German Moto3 Grand Prix could well be the final lightweight class GP to be held at the Sachsenring, as the tight, eastern German circuit looks set to be replaced by the Nurburgring from 2019 onwards, although how long that will be for is yet to be seen – currently the promoters have a contract with Dorna until 2021. Many issues surround the Sachsenring, not least that part of it is owned privately, and part of it is owned by the ADAC; primarily the circuit is a road safety facility, not a race track. Another is one similar to Brands Hatch, as there are many nearby residents who are not the biggest fans of the noise created in the track, no doubt especially on MotoGP weekend. But this merely begs the question: why, if you like peace and quiet, would you decide to live in close proximity to something which, by definition, creates a lot of noise? Anyway, for the Sachsenring, the end of its time on the MotoGP calendar seems to be coming, and just two years after the circuit was completely resurfaced.
Jorge Martin, winner at Assen TT. Image courtesy of Honda Pro Racing
Moto3 is about the only GP category which actually fits Sachsenring, the tight, twisty layout lending itself handsomely to the lightweight, nimble, 250cc, four stroke, single cylinder machines.
Last year, the German track was best mastered by Joan Mir, who took the victory from Romano Fenati and Marcos Ramirez, all three fighting until the final corner for the victory. Of course, 2018 Moto2 graduates, Fenati and Mir, will not be on the Moto3 podium, and with the current form of Marcos Ramirez, it is unlikely that any of last year’s top three will be returning to the German lightweight class podium.
It’s also predictable – on the surface, before a wheel has turned in the weekend – that no KTM will be able to match the leading Hondas this weekend. This is because of the characteristics of the KTM compared to the Honda – the Austrian bike having a strong engine but suffering quite significantly in the corners and the NSF250 having a seemingly far superior cornering performance and with little deficiency in the motor department. Theoretically, the Japanese machine should excel on such an awkward circuit with such a small percentage on the lap with full throttle. That said, Marco Bezzecchi has not been averse to a surprise or two this season.
In his first year at the front – his second in Grand Prix racing – Bezzecchi has been superbly consistent (he has finished on the podium in each of the races he has finished) and infectiously calm, and those two qualities pulled him a nineteen-point championship lead going into the previous round at Assen. However, a crash on the final lap for the Italian, and a win for the fastest man on a Moto3 bike in 2018, Jorge Martin, saw Bezzecchi’s championship advantage transform into a deficit and he now lies two points behind the Spaniard. A response will be important for Bezzecchi this weekend, and the unpredictable German weather could bring him into victory contention, like it did in Argentina.
As for Martin, his points lead comes as little surprise. His speed this year has been rarely matched, bad luck being the largest factor in preventing the number 88 from steaming away with this championship. Of course, a crash out of the lead in Barcelona did little for his championship too, but had he taken the fifty points he likely would have from the two races he was taken out of earlier in the season – Jerez and Le Mans – his position would be a lot more secure. Maybe the recapturing of the title lead will lead to greater consistency from the Spaniard, although for the sake of his rivals, and the championship battle, hopefully that will not be the case.
Nicolo Bulega enjoyed his strongest race of 2017 in Sachsenring last year, and in 2016 it was the first race where he showed his ability in the wet, when he was one of the fastest riders on the track before he made a common mistake in the monsoon conditions that day. The recent form of Bulega has been promising; fighting for the win in Montmelo before being taken out, and scoring his first front row and first points of the season in Assen last time out. After a shocking start to the season, it seems like Nicolo Bulega is back, and this weekend could provide a good opportunity for him to score a second career podium.
The recent form of
Enea Bastianini third, at Assen TT. Image courtesy of Honda Pro Racing
and Aron Canet has also been promising. Both still within reach of the championship lead, and coming back into podium-contending/race-winning form their title chances are not over. You might have expected them to be further back in the championship considering their respectively inconsistent starts to the season, but the similar inconsistency of Martin and Bezzecchi have kept them within reach.
Last year this race was a difficult one for Canet, dropping through the pack after qualifying on the front row, before crashing out of the race at turn twelve. In the case of Bastianini, he was sixth, over thirteen seconds off the win.
In wildcard/replacement news, Darryn Binder has been ruled out of this weekend after a training crash last week. He will be replaced by Moto3 Junior World Championship points leader, Raul Fernandez, who will be racing his second GP of 2018 after wildcarding in Barcelona earlier in the season.
Additionally, Livio Loi has been dropped by the Reale Avintia Academy team, and will be replaced until the end of the season by Avintia’s CEV rider, Vicente Perez.
Also, Ai Ogura will make his third wildcard appearance of the season, again in the Asia Talent Team, after riding in Jerez and Assen already, and acquitting himself rather well, scoring a point in Jerez and taking 23rd on his first visit to Assen.
Finally, World Supersport 300 rider, Luca Grunwald, will be making a return to Grand Prix racing. The German rider has a total of 23 GP starts between 2011 and 2014, scoring all eight of his points in 2012 when he rode a Kalex KTM. He has scored one win this season in the SSP300 World Championship, which is also his only podium. Despite this, he is second in the championship and only sixteen points off Ana Carrasco at the top of the championship.
Jorge Martin is a special rider. He began the 2018 Dutch TT weekend with a big crash in FP2 on Friday, which saw him have to use an altered right boot for the rest of the weekend. But that did not prevent him from taking his fifteenth pole position in Grand Prix racing, and from that pole (a Moto3 record breaker) he went on to take his fourth win of 2018. Not only that, but once again he displayed pace in the early part of the race which was enough to split the pack.
Finally, it was a five-rider group which fought for the win, with Martin, Enea Bastianini, Marco Bezzecchi, Aron Canet and John McPhee. All riders showed strength at some point in the race, they all looked like they could win at some point, but it was Martin who timed his bolt to perfection in the final stages to put himself out of reach of the chasing riders. It is possible to say that we have never seen in Moto3, a pace advantage of one rider like the one Martin has over the rest of the 2018 crop and his speed warrants a title, but he needs to match it with consistency if he wants to make that a reality.
Aron Canet took second place from Enea Bastianini in the final chicane, which represented the end to a podium drought stretching back to Argentina for the Spaniard. He lies now twenty four points behind the top of the championship, which is now occupied by Jorge Martin, but if he can continue this podium form there is still a championship opportunity for the number 44.
Enea Bastianini took the final podium position, to move himself twenty-one points away from the lead of the championship. It was the first time Bastianini has taken consecutive podiums since Misano and Aragon 2016 and finally it looks like he has found the form most people expected him to have from the word go. I guess you could say the same thing about Canet but in last year’s championship winning team and in his fifth season in the World Championship it is perhaps more expected of Bastianini to perform at the front week in, week out.
Fourth place went to Jaume Masia, his best result of the season, who led the chasing pack across the line ahead of Jakub Kornfeil, Lorenzo Dalla Porta and Darryn Binder who also enjoyed his best 2018 finish with the KTM Ajo team. Eighth place went to Gabriel Rodrigo, ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio who did his championship hopes few favours with such a result. The top ten was rounded out by Marcos Ramirez.
Nicolo Bulega has transformed his first front row start since Sachsenring last season, to a typically poor start and first lap, and finally ended up in eleventh place, although at least he finally has some points on the board. It has to be said that the ability of Martin to split the pack did Bulega no favours in this race, but you would have thought that after nearly two-and-a-half seasons of starting badly he and the Sky Racing Team VR46 would have been able to rectify the problem. As it is, work still needs to be done, but anyway it is good to see Bulega back on the pace. Sachsenring was his best race last season, so hopefully the Italian can continue this form at the circuit on 15th of july.
It was Bulega’s teammate, Dennis Foggia, who took twelfth place. It was perhaps Foggia’s best weekend of the season, and at some points in the race he was one of the fastest riders on track. Unfortunately for Foggia, the twelve place grid penalty he got for riding slowly cost him any chance of a top ten, but the signs are positive for the Italian with a view to the future.
Tatstuki Suzuki was thirteenth, ahead of Le Mans winner, Albert Arenas, and Niccolo Antonelli, who had a tough time all weekend, rounded out the points.
Sixteenth place went to Kaito Toba, ahead of Tony Arbolino, Philipp Oettl, Ayumu Sasaki and Kazuki Masaki who completed to top twenty. Twenty first went to Adam Norrodin, ahead of Nakarin Atiratphuvapat, wildcard Ai Ogura, Livio Loi, Alonso Lopez, Andrea Migno, Makar Yurchenko’s replacement Stefano Nepa, and finally Ryan van der Lagemaat who was the only rider to finish a lap down.
Marco Bezzecchi and John McPhee both crashed out in the final stages of the race. They were the only retirements and the only KTM riders in the front group, which perhaps says something about the motorcycle, most notably that it wears the tyres and especially the front tyre, at least from observation, as both riders seemed to be struggling in the twisty sections of Assen, the Austrian motor keeping them in contention. The crash for Bezzecchi was a particularly important one, as it ensured he gave up the championship lead to Jorge Martin. A slightly twisted positive for Bezzecchi, though, is that he has still not finished a race outside of the top three. Furthermore, Bezzecchi has proven in the first races this year that he can fight for the title, his consistency proving his biggest strength. With that in mind, Marco has to ensure that this is his final unforced error of this season, otherwise he has no chance to beat Martin’s outright speed.
Yesterday, Jorge Martin looked to be in trouble after a crash in FP2 which left him being carried away on a stretcher but today turned that around, despite an injured foot and thusly adjusted right Alpinestars boot, to take yet another Moto3 pole position by 0.310 seconds. Tomorrow it will be important for Martin to finish, not only to protect his foot but to also get some points on the board after the non-score in Barcelona two weeks ago. But Martin will not just want to finish, he will want to win, and it would be no surprise to see him break the pack, or at least try to, in the first laps tomorrow. Whether he can do it or not is a different story, but again he is probably the favourite for the victory tomorrow.
Two Italians join Martin on the front row: Enea Bastianini and Nicolo Bulega. The last time the pair started together on the front row was back in 2016, also in Assen. Bastianini has had a mixed weekend, climbing and tumbling through the times in almost equal measure, but he got a solid time on the board when it counted and will hope to be able to take back-to-back wins for the first time in his Grand Prix career tomorrow.
Nicolo Bulega, meanwhile, took his first front row start since Argentina last year, to show that Barcelona was no fluke, and his pace is truly back. Last time out in Barcelona, Bulega had the pace for the win but was taken out of contention by events out of his control – tomorrow he will look to rectify that, and maybe even take his first Grand Prix victory.
Aron Canet has shown superb pace this weekend and could fire himself back into championship contention tomorrow with a good result. Aron put himself in a good position to do so, too, qualifying third. A win tomorrow would be his first of the season, and could hardly be better timed, just before the end of the first half of the season.
Fifth place on tomorrow’s grid will be occupied by Lorenzo Dalla Porta, and the last place on the front row is taken by John McPhee, who has looked strong in the last two rounds and will be aiming to claim the podium that escaped him last time out in Montmelo.
Fabio Di Giannantonio is seventh on the grid, ahead of championship leader Marco Bezzecchi. Bezzecchi has been fast this weekend, but also has been suffering with the front end of the KTM, a common theme. But, the most important thing for Marco tomorrow is to protect his nineteen point championship advantage which he currently holds over the rider starting one place in front of him.
Marcos Ramirez goes from the back of the third row, whilst Gabriel Rodrigo, aiming for his second GP podium and second in a row, rounds out the top ten on the grid.
From here, things get complicated because of penalties. Yesterday, Adam Norrodin got a back of the grid penalty for his second offence of riding too slowly in three sectors in one session; whilst Dennis Foggia, Ayumu Sasaki, Jakub Kornfeil and Kaito Toba received 12 place grid penalties for the same offence, but they were first timers. Albert Arenas also picked a penalty up.
Darryn Binder. Image courtesy of Philip Platzer/KTM
So, from eleventh back, the grid positions are: Tony Arbolino, Niccolo Antonelli, Livio Loi, Philipp Oettl, Jaume Masia, Tatsuki Suzuki, Darryn Binder, Arenas, Andrea Migno, Nakarin Atiratphuvapat, Alonso Lopez, Ai Ogura (wildcard), Kornfeil, Kazuki Masaki, Stefano Nepa (replacing Makar Yurchenko), Ryan van der Lagemaat (Dutch wildcard), Sasaki, Foggia, Toba, Norrodin.
If Martin cannot break away tomorrow, it could be a cracking Moto3 Dutch TT, and a potentially crucial one for the championship.
Featured image courtesy of Gold & Goose/Red Bull Content Pool
The seventh round of the 2018 Moto3 World Championship looked, in the early phases, to be a fairly straightforward, uneventful affair, at least in the fight for the lead. Jorge Martin bolted immediately, only Tatsuki Suzuki able to go with the Spaniard. It looked set, Martin would win, eventually breaking the Japanese, and assume the championship lead.
Moto3 2018: Round Seven – Barcelona, Catalunya image courtesy of hondanews.eu
But it did not go like that. It was not Suzuki who faltered, it was Martin, crashing at turn nine on lap nine. He tried to re-join but the bike wouldn’t allow it. Suzuki duly fell back to the chasing pack of about ten or eleven riders, unable to maintain the pace Martin had previously been setting which had been good enough to pull the pair clear.
The drama was not done there, though, as Aron Canet and Albert Arenas came together into turn four with six laps to go and took down Nicolo Bulega in the process. Bulega had returned to the front-running pace this weekend, and felt he had the potential to win the race. When he was taken out, he was angry and expressed that to Canet and Arenas who at the time were both lying on the floor; Canet eventually carried away on a stretcher whilst Arenas was able to walk off. Bulega’s anger at the incident was understandable; he had finally gotten back to the front of a Grand Prix after spending all of last year at the back end of the top ten, and all of this year fighting for last, and crashing. That said, putting that before the safety of your competitors when they are clearly suffering is not perhaps the best way to go about things. Canet and Arenas were both largely unharmed in the incident, as was Bulega, and that is the most important thing.
The craziness did not end there: Jaume Masia made contact with John McPhee as a result of avoiding Marco Bezzecchi at the end of the pit straight. Masia lost control and collected Andrea Migno when he fell. Again, both riders were okay, but this time there was less anger in the gravel trap, and Masia was as apologetic as was to be expected, which Migno acknowledged.
That left five bikes in the leading group: Enea Bastianini, Marco Bezzecchi, John McPhee, Gabriel Rodrigo and Tatsuki Suzuki.
They had six laps to sort themselves out, and in those six laps it was Bastianini who took charge, and broke away just enough in the final stages of the race to put himself out of danger into the final corners, as he took his first win of the season, and first since Motegi 2016 when he beat Brad Binder with some stunning late-race pace. This win was different, though, for Enea, because it was his first outside of Gresini, and it also brought him into championship contention. He climbed up to fourth in the championship, and now sits thirty-five points behind table-topping Bezzecchi, but, perhaps more importantly, twelve points behind Jorge Martin who still surely has the be the championship favourite. There are another four points in front of Martin to Fabio Di Giannantonio, but the Italian’s poor weekend in Barcelona showed a weakness in his season which could cost him in November.
Bastianini celebrating his win. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
So, Bastianini is back in the championship hunt with this victory, but it is Marco Bezzecchi who remains atop the standings after he snatched second place from Gabriel Rodrigo on the line. It had been a tough weekend for Bezzecchi, struggling to find a good feeling with the PruestelGP KTM across all three days, but he still managed to arrive in the podium, showing his strength and potential in this season – even when things aren’t quite correct, Bezzecchi manages to be there and score important points for the championship. His strength is his consistency, and this is highlighted by the statistic that the Italian has finished on the podium in every race which he has finished. Bezzecchi is in the championship hunt 100%, it’s just hard to believe he can be there at the top until the end.
Third place went to Gabriel Rodrigo, who claimed his first podium of his Grand Prix career. There is no doubt that Gabri deserves this, he has been challenging near the front for a few seasons now, only for crashes to take him out of contention. Unfortunately, crashes are still a big part of his racing, but if he can find a way to finally phase them out somewhat, he can be a regular podium contender.
John McPhee took fourth place, his best result of the season, and it shows what he can achieve when he makes a good qualifying. As he becomes more in tune with the CIP-Team Green squad, surely results such as these will only become more recurrent for the Scot, as he surely looks to find himself a Moto2 ride for next season.
The only man who could match Jorge Martin’s pace at the start of the race, Tatsuki Suzuki, could in the end only manage fifth place. Still, it is a much better result than he picked up in Mugello, and also his best result of the season – his previous best being sixth in Le Mans. Kaito Toba led the second group home, with a sixth place finish, his career best, ahead of Di Giannantonio who recovered from running off track at turn five to finish seventh and move into second in the championship. Alonso Lopez came from the back of the grid to finish eighth in the second of his four home races; Dennis Foggia took his first top ten finish as a full-time Grand Prix rider with ninth palace which is a good result from a difficult weekend; and Raul Fernandez rounded out the top ten, which is very impressive from the Spanish wildcard – surely we will see him in the GP paddock full-time next season.
Eleventh place went to Jakub Kornfeil, ahead of Makar Yurchenko, Adam Norrodin, Nakarin Atiratphuvapat and Livio Loi rounded out the points. Philipp Oettl was sixteenth and the seventeenth and final finisher was Lorenzo Dalla Porta.
Darryn Binder was the first retirement on lap one. He was joined on the side lines by: Kazuki Masaki, Jorge Martin, Marcos Ramirez, Ayumu Sasaki, Tony Arbolino, Albert Arenas, Aron Canet, Nicolo Bulega, Andrea Migno and Jaume Masia.
The Qualifying top 3. Image courtesy of Honda pro racing
It’s been a difficult start to the season for Enea Bastianini, he is over forty points off the championship lead and has only finished three races. But, in true “La Bestia” style, he turns it all around in Barcelona, the scene of his first World Championship podium back in 2014. This time, he’s come back with a pole, his first since 2016 and first (obviously) with the Leopard Honda squad. The pace has been there all weekend, too, so perhaps this is the weekend for Enea to recharge his championship challenge.
Of course, Bastianini on pole means Jorge Martin does not receive the Pole Position Award (a genuine surprise) and this was mostly due to traffic. Put simply, Martin got unlucky, and Bastianini the opposite. In fairness, the traffic Martin encountered was, for the most part, doing nothing wrong. But anyway, Martin has the potential to perhaps do what he tried in Mugello: break the pack. In Italy, his teammate, Fabio Di Giannantonio, and Marco Bezzecchi went with him, but they haven’t had such strong pace this weekend. Maybe Bastianini can go with Martin, but that might be about it.
Jorge Martin. Image courtesy of Honda pro racing
Tatsuki Suzuki will be hoping to make more of his front row in Barcelona than he made of his front row in Mugello, where he finished seventeenth. Ayumu Sasaki joined Suzuki on the front row in Italy, and finished one place ahead of the Sic58 Squadra Corse rider, so will have a similar aim. Aron Canet and Kaito Toba – impressive again – round out row two.
John McPhee finally had a decent qualifying, and he will start from seventh place tomorrow on the CIP KTM, and joined by Gabriel Rodrigo and Marco Bezzecchi on the third row. Not a great qualifying for Bezzecchi, championship leader, but he has looked decent this weekend, and will still have hopes of a podium finish for tomorrow and limiting the damage done in the championship done by Martin.
Lorenzo Dalla Porta heads up row four, from Kazuki Masaki and Nicolo Bulega, who is, apparently, back. Bulega has had a miserable year, and actually it even goes back to last year where he had a best position of fourth. But the Italian showed some good signs in Mugello, and this weekend he has been very quick, often in the top ten. Unfortunately, a mistake in the final sector cost him almost one second, and so he will have to do what he can from the back of the fourth row tomorrow; but a podium is not entirely out of the question tomorrow for Bulega, and that is something pretty much everyone expected they would not be saying (or writing) at any point this year.
If it was a bad qualifying for the championship leader, Marco Bezzecchi, it was even worse for Fabio Di Giannantonio. The Italian has been struggling all weekend, never in the top ten, and a crash in the early stages of qualifying got his session off to a bad start, from which he could only recover to thirteenth. He only had one run, in the end, as it took the Gresini team almost the whole session to repair Diggia’s bike. He has a lot of work to do tomorrow.
Jakub Kornfeil and the impressive wildcard, Raul Fernandez, round out row five. Interesting to not that Fernandez, in the Angel Nieto Team, was ahead of both his teammates, Andrea Migno and Albert Arenas.
In fact, Migno finished qualifying in sixteenth place, ahead of Jaume Masia and Philipp Oettl on the sixth row. Albert Arenas heads up row seven ahead of Darryn Binder and Adam Norrodin, whilst Tony Arbolino is ahead of Makar Yurchenko and Alonso Lopez on row eight. Row nine sees Marcos Ramirez ahead of Dennis Foggia and Livio Loi; whilst Vicente Perez and Nakarin Atiratphuvapat complete the grid.
Niccolo Antonelli did not run in qualifying, because he dislocated his left shoulder in a crash at turn two in FP3 in the morning.
The 2018 Moto3 World Championship arrives in Barcelona this weekend for round seven of this season, and to the old circuit layout – the two fast right handers ending the lap.
Coming into this seventh round, Marco Bezzecchi still holds a slim lead in the standings after his impressive start to the season for PruestelGP. Second place in Mugello was the best he could manage with the KTM on the limit with the front tyre for almost the whole race, in almost every corner. For sure, the KTM lost a lot of time in the corners, and Bezzecchi was the only rider who could manage that to be able to fight for the win, but the straight line speed advantage that appeared for the Austrian bikes in Le Mans was apparent once more, and that kept the Italian in the game. He would have been disappointed to miss out by so little – just 0.019 seconds in the end – in his home GP, but, really, did even he expect to be leading the World Championship after six rounds? It was only fourteenth for Bezzecchi in Catalunya last year, but of course he was on the CIP Mahindra and as in every other round it is difficult to read too much into Bezzecchi’s result last year. We will see what the number 12 has this weekend during Free practice.
It was Jorge Martin who took his third win of the season in Mugello. Both he and his teammate, Fabio Di Giannantonio, looked fabulous all weekend long and clearly had far superior pace in the main body of the lap compared to Bezzecchi. In fact, being able to hold off the number 12 KTM in the final run to the line was impressive in itself, and ultimately Martin deserved the victory. He probably also deserves to be leading the World Championship at the moment but the DNFs of entirely not his making in both Jerez and Le Mans have prevented that from happening. Jorge is surely the favourite this weekend, too; he lost out in the final corners to who else, but to Joan Mir in last season’s race[at Barcelona], the move of the eventual World Champion also costing Martin a place to Fenati. But what Martin showed in Mugello was that, even with the slipstream, he can break the pack. Sure, Diggia and Bez caught him, but only because they had pace to match him, not because of slipstream. If Martin can split the pack like he did in Mugello again in Montmelo this weekend, it will likely be the same trio from the Italian Grand Prix, joined by maybe a few others, who contest the win, and that will work perfectly for the number 88 who would be able then to exercise his pace better than in a twenty-bike group more typical of Moto3. With his Red Bull KTM Moto2 deal in his back pocket for next year, when he will replace Miguel Oliveira, Martin will be looking to confirm that the Austrian factory took the right decision in picking him by making a good weekend in Montmelo.
So Martin is the favourite, but after being denied his first win in Le Mans for absurd penalties and being, for the third time in three years, denied by less than one tenth from victory in his home GP, Fabio Di Giannantonio will be desperate to win this weekend. This could end in one of two ways: it could power him to victory, or it could leave him in the gravel. It was only seventh place last year for Fabio in Barcelona, so for the championship – in which he is only eight points adrift of the top spot – it will be important for him to better that result. In fact, considering the consistency of both Martin and Bezzecchi, it will probably be important for Diggia to find the podium, and he is well capable of that.
Of course, in Spain, all the Spanish riders will want to do well, especially Aron Canet, who since his crash in Jerez which took three others with him has been quite under the radar. He was impressive in France but due to his grid penalty it only got him as far as eighth place, and in Mugello he was almost transparent again, only managing eleventh place. He is not out of this championship, sitting in fourth place, only 22 points away from Bezzecchi, but his results need to pick up quickly before the championship becomes out of reach for him.
In wildcard news, a common thread in Spanish races, Raul Fernandez will be in attendance for the Angel Nieto Team this weekend. In the week following the Barcelona round of the Moto3 Junior World Championship last weekend, there has been much said about Andreas Perez in light of his tragic accident last week, and there is no doubt that every rider will be thinking of Andreas this weekend, but perhaps especially Fernandez, who shared the grid of the CEV Repsol with him at the beginning of this season, so expect a passionate display from Raul, who first came to the attention of Grands Prix back in 2016 at Valencia where he made his debut in the World Championship. A difficult season last year with Aspar on the Mahindra kept him away from GPs, but now he is back atop the Junior World Championship standings and will be hoping to be in and around the fastest riders this weekend.
The French Moto3 Grand Prix, round five of the 2018 World Championship, should have been all about Aron Canet – how quick could he get through the field and could he get to the leaders. The Spaniard was forced to start the race from last position on the grid following the crash he caused in Jerez and his incident with Makar Yurchenko in Argentina.
But instead Race Direction decided that it was they, who would cause the controversy in this race, and take all attention from the racing. They did this by enforcing penalties, ridiculous ones! They gave each rider who cut either the first chicane at turns three and four or the second one at turns nine and ten a penalty which, in their opinion, was equal to the time the rider had gained.
Jakub Kornfeil was the first to rack up a time penalty (of 1.3s), for going wide at turn nine and cutting turn ten when Jorge Martin came across him in the braking zone, which, to some extent, left Kornfeil with little solution but to go off. Kornfeil then cut the chicane at turns three and four for a similar thing, but no penalty was given for this incident. It was then Niccolo Antonelli’s turn to get penalised for cutting turns three and four, and he got 1.8 seconds compared to Kornfeil’s 1.3 seconds.
Then, critically for the race[result], it was Fabio Di Giannantonio who got three seconds added to his race time for cutting turns nine and ten. The most important thing to point out is that none of the riders gained any positions or time, nor did they hold onto positions unfairly, by cutting the track. The penalty for Di Giannantonio ultimately cost him the race, after he passed Marco Bezzecchi at the final corner on the final lap, and it was entirely unfair. Di Giannantonio gained no time, if anything he lost time, in cutting the chicane – he made sure of it. And if he did gain time it was not anything like three seconds. To give a comparison, Valentino Rossi went off track last year in Austin when Johann Zarco put an aggressive move on him at turn three in Texas and gained three tenths in that sector. Rossi was penalised three tenths, which was fair. The three seconds incurred by Di Giannantonio, the 1.8 incurred by Antonelli (who actually lost several positions when he ran off) and the 1.3 given to Kornfeil are not only unjust but also inconsistent with the precedent the Race Direction had already set in Texas last year. This means that a new precedent has been set, and it is a dangerous one. If something like this happened in MotoGP to, for example, Valentino Rossi, there would be complete uproar, and rightly so. Race Direction need to sort this issue out quickly, before it gets messy.
Thankfully, though, Race Direction did not steal the whole show. Jakub Kornfeil had the save of all saves, when he launched the PruestelGP KTM from the single “whoop” that Enea Bastianini’s crashed Leopard Honda had created in front of him, and somehow landed it in the gravel. Marc Marquez declared it the best save ever, and if Marc says so, on this topic it is true. Congratulations, Mr. Kornfeil, the only person to successfully ride MX on a GP bike.
FabioDi Giannantonio Round Five – Le Mans, France. Image courtesy of HondaNews.eu
After all the penalties had been handed out and Fabio Di Giannantonio had had a little, but well deserved cry, it was Albert Arenas who instead took his first Grand Prix victory. He did not deserve it, really, but either way it was a great moment for the Spaniard, although he will probably still want to win a race by crossing the line first. Anyway, it was nice to see the Angel Nieto name back on the top step of the podium.
The Nieto name was on step two, as well, thanks to Andrea Migno on the second of the Angel Nieto Team KTMs who followed his teammate home for second. Temporarily, Nicco Antonelli was third, but his penalty gave that position to Marcos Ramirez who took his second podium of the season after his third place in Jerez. Ramirez’ third place also gave KTM their second consecutive podium lockout. Back in Qatar, I likened this season, in prospect, to 2013, with three riders dominating. That has not been precisely true, but two KTM podium lockouts in two races? Now that is 2013.
Fabio Di Giannantonio ended up fourth, despite crossing the finish line first. He was eight tenths short of his first victory, but he and his team have maintained that he is the moral winner of the 2018 French Grand Prix. Somehow, the feeling is that in two weeks’ time in Mugello for the Italian Grand Prix, the Roman will have his first winner’s trophy, and probably the first of many.
Niccolo Antonelli’s penalty dropped him to fifth place, just in front of Jakub Kornfeil who returned from the French motorcycle show-jumping championships just in time to cross the line in sixth place. Tony Arbolino was seventh, ahead of Aron Canet who did well to recover so many positions without being penalised for running on, Tatsuki Suzuki and Jaume Masia who rounded out the top ten.
Darryn Binder took his best finish of the year with eleventh place, ahead of John McPhee who also made a decent recovery after he, like Canet, started on the back row. Makar Yurchenko was thirteenth ahead of Dennis Foggia who took his first points of the season, and Jerez winner Philipp Oettl, who has seemingly been unable to build on his debut win and in Le Mans completed the points finishers.
Ayumu Sasaki was sixteenth, in front of Kaito Toba, Kazuki Masaki, who himself had an unbelievable save on lap one at the first chicane, Alonso Lopez, Nakarin Atiratphuvapat and Livio Loi who was 21st and the last finisher.
Gabriel Rodrigo, Nicolo Bulega, Lorenzo Dalla Porta, Enea Bastianini, Adam Norrodin, Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi were the retirements.
Andrea Migno, Albert Arenas & Marcos Ramirez Podium Le Mans 2018. Image courtesy of Philip Platzer / KTM Media Library
Bezzecchi and Martin retired together on the final corner of the final lap. Di Giannantonio passed Bezzecchi on the inside, Bezzecchi tried to cut underneath to pass him back in the second part of the final corner, cracked the throttle and threw himself over the top. Martin had nowhere to go and was taken out for the second weekend in a row. Bezzecchi apologised after, at least on social media anyway, but anyway Jorge Martin knows enough about racing to know that Bezzecchi did nothing anyone else wouldn’t do in his position. They are both still well in the championship hunt, Bezzecchi is still leading the championship on 63 points, four clear of Diggia, seven clear of Canet, whilst Martin is eight back of the championship lead.
Featured image courtesy of Philip Platzer / KTM Media Library
Moto3 qualifying got underway in atypically warm conditions in Le Mans for the fourth round of the 2018 World Championship, but as had been the case across all three classes over the course of the weekend, it was crashes aplenty.
Avoiding falling was the rider who finally set pole position, Jorge Martin. The Spaniard is still carrying an injury this weekend, and perhaps not had the pace you might expect from him, but that did not stop him taking yet another pole position. With the way the first section of corners work at Le Mans, and with the number of Moto3 bikes entering them on lap one tomorrow, being on the front row is key to keep out of trouble, which is precisely what Martin will be hoping to do tomorrow considering his injury, and his championship ambitions – he can’t afford another DNF after Jerez.
It was a surprise in second place, with the Czech veteran, Jakub Kornfeil, setting the time fast enough for the middle spot in the front row. Row one was rounded out by the number 33 of Enea Bastianini, who had a monster high side in the early stages of the session at Musée, but got himself and the bike back in relatively good states, and his front row start tomorrow is just reward for his efforts. He will be hoping for his first win of 2018 tomorrow.
Marcos Ramirez built on his podium at home in Jerez two weeks ago to take fourth on the grid, and it looks like perhaps the Spaniard is beginning to return to form after his difficult start to the season. Fifth place on the grid tomorrow will be filled by Albert Arenas, who is sporting a Mike Wazowski helmet design on his HJC, who sponsor the French Grand Prix hence the one-off designs for their riders this weekend. Championship leader, Marco Bezzecchi, was another who crashed, but managed to recover to take sixth place, as he looks for his fourth successive podium in sunday’s race.
Row three will be headed up by Niccolo Antonelli, ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio who has been tipped by his teammate Jorge Martin to be the Spaniard’s main challenger for the world title. Andrea Migno will be off the back of the third row.
Aron Canet set the tenth fastest time, but his part in the major crash at Jerez, combined with his incident with Makar Yurchenko, got him a back-of-the grid start for this race, so his qualifying position was irrelevant today.
So, it will be Lorenzo Dalla Porta who will stat tenth tomorrow, ahead of Philipp Oettl (also sporting a Mike Wazowski helmet) and Darryn Binder. Tony Arbolino will head up row five, in front of Tatsuki Suzuki and Nicolo Bulega, who seems to have made a step forward this weekend, building on progress which was apparently made at the private Aragon test last week.
Alonso Lopez – image courtesy of Honda Pro racing.
Kazuki Masaki, last year’s Red Bull Rookies Champion, will start sixteenth, ahead of Alonso Lopez and Makar Yurchenko; whilst Jaume Masia will front row seven in nineteenth, ahead of Livio Loi and Dennis Foggia. Gabriel Rodrigo will start 22nd, ahead of Nakarin Atiratphuvapat. John McPhee set the 25th fastest time (he had a crash at the end which cost him a chance at a final attempt), which would have been good enough for 24th after Canet’s penalty, but John himself got a penalty for causing the crash on lap one at Jerez two weeks ago, which took out three other riders. That 6-place penalty would have put him last, but Canet’s penalty means the Scot will start second-last, in 27th. With penalities added this means Ayumu Sasaki will start from the back of row eight in 24th. Kaito Toba will start 25th, Adam Norrodin 26th, and then finally the two penalised riders, McPhee and Canet.
Probably the biggest thing to watch durring the race will be the speed at which Canet can come through the pack. If he keeps it clean, considering the closeness of the times this weekend, it is not impossible for the Spaniard to make the podium.
The Moto3 World Championship rolls into Le Mans this weekend for round five of the 2018 season, off the back of a dramatic fourth round two weeks ago in Jerez, which saw a new winner in the shape of Philipp Oettl as well as a pileup courtesy of Aron Canet.
It was Oettl who stole the headlines, though; as his win brought him and his father, Peter, into the same group as Stefan and Helmut Bradl, Graziano and Valentino Rossi and more, as a father-son pairing to have both won a Grand Prix. It was clearly particularly special for Peter, whose celebrations after the race were quite spectacular and who has run the team for which Philipp rides since he began in the World Championship back in 2013. We saw Brad Binder claim his first Grand Prix win in Jerez back in 2016, and go on to win the championship in the same year, will we see the same for Oettl?
There are 28 points between the German and the new; and first time championship leader, who is also riding a KTM this season. That is Marco Bezzecchi, the latest surprise from the VR46 Riders Academy, and what a start to the season he has had. A fall in the first race when he was battling for the podium now seems a long time ago; since then he has won in Argentina, finished third in Texas and then second in Spain. In two out of four races this season he has been the top KTM (Argentina, Texas) and Oettl is the closest KTM rider to him in the championship. In many respects, Bezzecchi is this season what Francesco Bagnaia was to Mahindra back in 2016 – the only differences lie in Bez’s apparent ability to fight for this year’s Moto3 World Championship title, and the KTM’s allowance for him to do so, although there is little doubt that the KTM is disadvantaged compared to the Honda. But three podiums in the last three races show that, whilst the Bezzecchi-KTM partnership might not be the outright fastest one out there. It is, at the moment, the most consistent, and consistency wins championships: Alzamora in 125cc, 1998, Hayden in MotoGP, 2006, Vinales in Moto3, 2013, are all prime examples. The KTM has always been strong on the brakes, with good stability, and such a trait is a helpful one at Le Mans with many stop-start sections, so maybe this weekend Bezzecchi will be able to get onto the podium once more, and maybe Oettl can join him there.
Furthermore, the weather in Le Mans is, certainly, uncertain. Whilst the forecast has been showing, for the most part, a completely dry weekend with decent temperatures, is would not be unlike Le Mans to throw some rain into the equation this weekend, and we know from last year as well as Argentina that Bezzecchi excels in low-grip and rain conditions – maybe the French weather will present an opportunity for the Italian.
Jorge Martin at Le Mans 2017 . Image courtesy of Redbull Content pool
Jorge Martin comes into this weekend lying second in the championship, but also injured, after the aforementioned Canet-caused mayhem in Spain. It is a wrist injury for Martin, but he is hoping to be fit for this weekend, and really it would be a surprise if he was not able to compete, but there is always the chance that, like Leon Camier at Imola last weekend, he is unable. It was a crash for Martin in Le Mans last year, with six laps to go, and it was the same the year before when he crashed on the final lap. So, perhaps not a great circuit for Martin, and with the injury he is carrying, this weekend could present an opportunity for his championship rivals to make an advantage to the Spaniard.
One such rival could be the person who caused Jorge’s injury, Aron Canet, who lies fifteen points off the lead, in the World Championship and seven from Martin. Canet fought for the podium in 2016, his rookie year, but nearly took his teammate out in the penultimate corner, trying to pass for third. As it was, they both stayed on, but considering that, in combination with Argentina FP1 and Jerez two weeks ago, a reputation is building for Canet, and not one he would like. Hopefully, this weekend his speed will be the main talking point, not his potential danger to the rest of the field.
Canet did take a podium last year, though, although a long way behind the victor, Joan Mir. The other rider on the podium, in third place, was Fabio Di Giannantonio, who will be coming into this weekend looking to make up for the missed opportunity in Spain, where he had the pace to win the race all weekend, but was unable to use it on Sunday, and ended up down the order in seventh place after he was caught in the second group due to a mistake in Dry Sack in the mid-portion of the race.
Enea Bastianini has a crucial round this weekend, too, after a 50% crash rate in the first four races. Admittedly, his second DNF of the season was entirely not his fault, as he was caught up in the incident with Canet, but the crash in Qatar looks like it is really hurting the Italian at this moment, as he is thirty points away from the top spot in the standings. Even if he could not challenge Martin or Canet in Qatar, he would have taken sixteen points for sure, which would put him just fourteen points off at this point in the season. At the end of the year we always look at the ‘ifs and buts’, and this seems like a particularly popular one for people to speak about with respect to the Moto3 class in November. But there are many races to go, and perhaps this will be the one where “La Bestia” turns his season around.
