The Czech Moto2 Grand Prix was the best of the season – by far. The battle between Miguel Oliveira and Luca Marini was stunning, with the pair swapping positions many times in the last laps.
Start of the Moto2 race at the Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
But the Austrian Grand Prix went a step further. This time it was Marini’s teammate, Francesco Bagnaia, who fought Oliveira for the win, and eventually the Italian came out on top in what was a stunning battle, with obvious differences between the riding styles of the two riders, and the characteristics of their two machines. Oliveira had supreme mid-corner speed, and was strong on corner exit, too, but Bagnaia’s entry speed was incredible, nearly hitting Oliveira’s rear tyre on several occasions, but somehow the pair never came to blows.
The last lap rolled around, Oliveira leading Bagnaia, and the Italian’s move was obvious. The #42 had made a move for the lead several times into turn nine, the penultimate corner, and really it was the only place he could be close enough such was Oliveira’s corner exit speed. Sure enough, he made his move in T9, and whilst he had run wide on previous laps, on this occasion he managed to hold it tighter, and Oliveira’s response was a much tougher one to pull off than in previous laps. The Portuguese had to lunge Bagnaia, his rear tyre coming off the floor, and so it was simple enough for the Italian to square him off and out-drag him to the line.
Bagnaia leading Oliveira at the Redbull Ring 2018. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
It was Bagnaia’s fifth win of the season, and took him back to the top of the standings, reclaiming the championship lead he lost in Brno, by three points. Furthermore, it was an important win for Bagnaia since it was the first proper duel between the two championship rivals, and psychological benefits he will take from that will be felt for time to come.
For Oliveira – and KTM – it was a disappointing result, in the end. Oliveira had the early advantage, as Bagnaia ran wide in the first corner and lost a second or so to Miguel, and a position to Jorge Navarro. This gave Oliveira the jump, but he was unable to keep that advantage. Despite this, he was able to be fast enough in the right areas to keep Bagnaia behind, and respond to any passes that the Italian put on him. Unfortunately for Miguel, the only pass he couldn’t respond too was the one from Bagnaia on the final lap, costing him and KTM the victory in KTM’s home track. Still, he is only three points back in the championship, so has everything to play for in the remaining eight rounds.
Six seconds back of the lead battle was the fight for the final podium spot, Luca Marini finally coming out on top. It was a tough race for Marini – a tough weekend, in fact. He had been struggling with rear tyre life all weekend, but a change in warm up improved his used tyre pace. This enabled him to fight from his grid position of 10th to fight for the podium. That fight was with Mattia Pasini and Alex Marquez, and a late pass on Marquez was what earned Marini the podium. Marquez tried to fight back in the final corner, but ran on and crashed on the concrete kerb in the run-off zone. This brought a flashback to the MotoGP race of last year, as Marini threw a left hand in frustration with Marquez’s move. Fortunately for the number 10, his run out of the last corner was not hampered enough to allow Pasini past, and Marini duly took his third consecutive podium, and gave Sky VR46 their second double podium in two races.
Pasini took fourth place. He wanted the podium, of course, but opted to take as few risks as possible after crashing a lot in the last races. This fourth place was Pasini’s best ride since his win in Argentina back in round two, and hopefully for the Italian it will trigger a return to form.
Alex Marquez, Mattia Pasini and Luca Marini. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Jorge Navarro’s best weekend of the season culminated in an impressive fifth place. Navarro is currently on the job search for 2019, so he needed this result, and beating the factory KTM of Brad Binder (6th) by half a second was certainly impressive for the Spaniard.
Marcel Schrotter was a further two tenths behind the South African, and yet again was unable to translate impressive pace through the weekend into a podium come race time.
Despite a searing start, coming from 20th to 7th in just two laps, Joan Mir was unable to continue that hot pace, ending the race in a distant eighth place. At a track where he was so dominant in Moto3, it was disappointing to see Mir struggle so much in the race last weekend.
Fabio Quartararo’s race was ruined in turn one. He had contact with Bagnaia which sent the pair of them wide, but also sent Quartararo back to 20th. He finally came through to ninth, which was quite an impressive comeback from the MotoGP bound Frenchman.
Iker Lecuona rounded out the top ten. His weekend was tainted by a crash in FP2 where he took out Miguel Oliveira in turn one, but another top ten for the Spaniard is positive after a tough period with the Swiss Innovative Investors KTM team.
Fabio Quartararo, Ramno Fenati, Stefano Manzi and Danny Kent at The Redbull Ring 2018. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
There was just one tenth between Lecuona and eleventh placed Romano Fenati, whilst twelfth place Danny Kent was a further second back.
Six seconds further back was Andrea Locatelli, who was 4.5 in front of Stefano Manzi, who showed what is possible when he stays on his Forward Racing Suter. Meanwhile, Tetsuta Nagashima rounded out the points finisher.
Sixteenth went to Khairul Idham Pawi, ahead of Dominique Aegerter, Steven Odendaal, Joe Roberts and Jules Danilo who rounded out the top twenty.
Niki Tuuli was 21st, ahead of Bo Bendsneyder, Isaac Vinales on his Forward Racing debut; then came Alejandro Medina, Xavi Cardelus and Lorenzo Baldassarri who crashed early on but re-mounted.
Augusto Fernandez and Simone Corsi were also involved with that Baldassarri crash, and were both lucky to not be hit by riders behind. Remy Gardner, Federico Fuligni, Sam Lowes and Alex Marquez were the other retirements.
Lights-to-flag victories are uncommon to say the least in Moto3, but that is precisely what Marco Bezzecchi achieved in Austria on Sunday. He made the holeshot, and apart from one moment with four laps to go where Jorge Martin overtook him, Bezzecchi was never passed. It was a supreme ride by the Italian, one well-deserving of his second ever Grand Prix victory. It also meant he extended his championship lead, of course, which now stands at twelve points. Other than that, it is difficult to say much about Bezzecchi’s ride, because it was pretty much faultless.
Marco Bezzecchi Red Bull Ring, Spielberg 2018. Image courtesy of Gold and Goose /KTM
A poor qualifying and a worse start gave Enea Bastianini a lot of work to do – again. It is becoming a regular thing now with Bastianini, that he cannot start. Like Vinales in MotoGP, his starts have cost him a handful or two of points, and you have to say a few GP wins as well, because his late-race pace – also like Vinales – has been superlative pretty much all season. He recovered to second this time, though, keeping his championship hopes alive, although he is very distant at this stage, with eight rounds left, the deficit stands at 41 points.
By far the standout performance, though, of the 2018 Moto3 Austrian Grand Prix was that of Jorge Martin. Just eight says after he broke his radius in Brno, he qualified second on the grid behind Bezzecchi, and a day later he fought until the end to finish third in the race. It really was a superhuman effort by Martin, and even though the conditions of the race played a little into his hands, you can’t take anything away from his ride. All of his time was made in the two left handers in the middle of the lap, as he consistently took ten bike lengths out of his KTM rivals in those two corners alone. That is impressive enough, but is made even more so considering it was his left radius that is the injured one. Coming into the weekend, Martin was expecting a damage limitation job at best, but instead he rode beautifully to take yet another podium, and drop only nine points in the championship, leaving him just twelve back in the standings to Bezzecchi, who was sure to offer his hand in congratulation and admiration to Martin after the race.
Austria represented Albert Arenas’ best performance since his win in Le Mans back in May, as he took fourth place, ahead of Lorenzo Dalla Porta who bridged the gap to the leaders with Bastianini in the closing stages. The Leopard pair had been working together quite well all weekend, and it seemed almost destined that they would end up helping each other into podium contention.
Jorge Martin. Moto3 2018: Round Eleven – Red Bull Ring, Austria. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Jaume Masia was in second place until the penultimate corner, where he ran slightly deep and allowed Enea Bastianini through. Jorge Martin was also able to sneak underneath and as the #5 rider tried to hang on round the outside of the #88, he also lost fourth and fifth places to Arenas and Dalla Porta respectively.
A disappointing qualifying for Ayumu Sasaki left him with a lot of work to do to be able to achieve a decent result. He achieved the work as well, coming from 23rd on the grid to finish seventh in what might be his best World Championship ride to date.
After running with the front guys for a large portion of the race, Gabriel Rodrigo could only manage to come home in eighth place, ahead of Tony Arbolino and Aron Canet who disappointingly completed the top ten, when he really should have been fighting for the victory.
Eleventh over the line was Fabio Di Giannantonio, who had been fighting with Bastianini and Dalla Porta, but then slowed, and ended up shoving a huge late dive on John McPhee in the final corner to try and salvage seventh, but he ran them both wide. McPhee came home twelfth, but it was still an impressive ride from the Scot after qualifying stone last.
He may have been on the podium at his home race last week, but in Austria Jakub Kornfeil could only manage thirteenth, but was ahead of Philipp Oettl and Marcos Ramirez, who rounded out the points.
Kaito Toba crossed the line in sixteenth, ahead of Adam Norrodin, Tatsuki Suzuki and Darryn Binder, whilst Ai Ogura rounded out the top twenty in his fourth wildcard of the year.
Twenty-first went to Kazuki Masaki, whilst Niccolo Antonelli and Nicolo Bulega had difficult races in 22nd and 23rd respectively. Alonso Lopez also struggled, and finished down in 24th place, but ahead of Dennis Foggia who was 26th. Fellow CEV graduate, Vicente Perez was sandwiched between Lopez and Foggia in 25th spot over the line. Stefano Nepa was 27th, ahead of Nakarin Atiratphuvapat and Max Kofler who was the 28th and final finisher.
In a somewhat surprising turn of events, there was only one retirement in the Moto3 race in Austria, and it was Andrea Migno at the final corner 12 laps from the flag.
“Ducati Land”. That was the tag Marc Marquez labelled the Red Bull Ring on Saturday, despite setting pole position in Q2 by 0.002 seconds over Andrea Dovizioso. There was no debate about his statement, the slow corners, followed by long straights that the Red Bull Ring is comprised of suits the Desmosedici perfectly.
In the same moment, the same characteristics of the Red Bull Ring lend themselves extremely well to Jorge Lorenzo, whose style is all geared to strong corner exit speed.
Whilst there was a miscommunication on Saturday in the #99 side of the Ducati garage, it would be solely down to his only two rivals – Marquez and Ducati teammate Andresa Dovizioso – to defeat the Majorcan over the 28-lap race distance.
But that is not to say that Lorenzo was the clear favourite; both Marquez and Dovizioso had looked at least as strong as the five times World Champion on the previous two days, and Marquez was the only rider in the field to have managed to get a long run in on all tyres.
Marc Marquez, Jorge Lorenzo and Andresa Dovizioso. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
However, it made it no less surprising to see Marquez escape at the front in the beginning of the race. The reigning World Champion admitted after the race that his strategy was to bolt away at the start, to try to fight only one Ducati, as he had learned from Brno that fighting two factory Desmosedicis at the same time is nearly impossible, such is their strength in both acceleration and braking.
His strategy nearly worked. When Marquez passed Dovi in turn three on the first lap, he ran the Italian out wide, costing him two places. It let Lorenzo through, but Marquez at this stage was more worried about Dovi. Once Marquez had passed Lorenzo for the lead, he started to pull away, and Lorenzo looked to be both struggling and holding up his factory Ducati teammate.
But Dovizioso was unable to pass the number 99, which for a while looked okay, because the gap between Marquez and Lorenzo was decreasing. But in the same moment as Lorenzo passed Marquez for the lead, in turn one on lap nineteen, Dovizioso ran wide, lost one second, and was unable in the remaining ten laps to close the margin.
Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez and Andresa Dovizioso. Image courtesy of Ducati
It was, then, between Lorenzo and Marquez. They swapped positions often, Marquez being very strong into turn three, and Lorenzo more so in turns one, eight and nine.
Eventually, the final lap arrived, with Marquez leading into it, but Lorenzo passing him into turn one. Marquez responded in turn three, but simultaneously lost both the front and the rear, which meant Lorenzo was able to carry the momentum around the outside, and out-drag the number 93 to turn four. The gap now was quite big, and over Lorenzo Marquez did not have the same advantage in the two left handers of turns six and seven that he had over Dovizioso last year. This, combined with Marquez’s mistake in turn three, was the deciding factor, because Marquez could not get close enough into either turn nine or ten to make a pass, and he could not deny Lorenzo victory.
Jorge learned his lesson from last year. In 2017, he went too hard at the start, trying to escape, but he used too much fuel, which meant that he had to run softer engine modes in the later laps, giving him nothing to fight with in the second half of the race. This year, he managed the fuel at the start, as well as the tyre (he went soft-soft), and this allowed him to attack more at the end, at no disadvantage to Marquez. Furthermore, Lorenzo proved once again that the soft, when managed correctly, can last better than a medium or a hard rear tyre, simply because it spins less, and so there is less excessive temperature build up in the tyre.
Perhaps, though, the most impressive thing about Lorenzo’s ride, was his aggression in the battle against Marquez. There were some tough moves going down in this battle, it was a proper scrap, one that you might expect Lorenzo to lose out in, in the past, but on this occasion, just like in Brno a week previous, Jorge had enough and more to be able to put up a fight against the best scrapper in the world, and he turned the Red Bull Ring from “Ducati Land” to “Lorenzo’s Land”. Again, we ask “what if?” What if Jorge Lorenzo had started the season in the form he has had since Mugello. What if Ducati had listened to him, and given him the fuel tank modifications sooner? What if Ducati re-signed him? Jorge Lorenzo has the potential to fight for this world title, but unfortunately all the work he has put in this year to work out the Ducati will be for nothing when he jumps on the Honda RC213V at Valencia in November, and starts all over again. But for now, he and the Desmosedici might just be the strongest package out there.
Marc Marquez, on the podium after coming 2nd at The RedBull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
For Marquez, it was yet another disappointing defeat at the hand of a Ducati rider in the final lap. That said, he couldn’t do much about it. The Ducati gets out of the corner better than the Honda, it has more power in the straight than the Honda and it has better braking stability than the Honda. You can’t fight that. Marquez was over the limit trying to fight the Ducati of Lorenzo in this battle, and when that happens he normally wins. In fact, against any other bike, he wins 9/10 times. Even still, Marquez can be content with his effort in Austria, he beat one Ducati in their best track, and he extended his championship lead to 59 points. The title is still his to lose, and ultimately he knows that in the long run – pas this year – Dovizioso is probably his main threat over the course of the season, and Marc demolished Dovi this weekend.
Dovizioso’s problems started before the race, in the tyre selection. He chose medium tyres front and rear, compared to his teammate’s all-soft choice. From the beginning of the race, Dovizioso was struggling to get the bike to stop , and the time he spent behind Lorenzo killed his race, because that was when he was the most comfortable. The mistake he made ten laps from the flag cost him one second, and after that for a couple of laps he couldn’t find a rhythm. By the time he found his pace again, his tyre was finished and the leaders were gone. A disappointing race for Dovi, but another podium strengthens his bid for second in the championship, and you would probably still expect the Italian to be more consistent for the rest of the season than Lorenzo, although Lorenzo now leads him in the championship by two points.
Fourth over the line was Cal Crutchlow, nine seconds back from the win, and 3.5 seconds clear of Danilo Petrucci in fifth. The critical thing for this pair, for the race, was the personnel. Both of them have factory bikes, but none have factory teams, and this is what makes the difference in a rear-tyre-limited/fuel-limited race like this one, because the factory riders have a lot more people working to find the perfect electronics setting, and the perfect fuel strategy. Still, it was Crutchlow’s best Austrian performance by far, after a ride-through in 2016, and a fifteenth last year. Ahead of Silverstone in two weeks, this is a great way for the Brit to go into it, as he looks to win his home race for the first time in his career.
Valentino Rossi and his team made a change in warm up on Sunday morning which allowed him to be more consistent with a used tyre. With this gain, he was able to half-rescue Yamaha’s weekend by finishing sixth, which was beyond his expectation. Of course, it was still a disastrous weekend for Yamaha, and Rossi is still without a podium in Austria in the top class, but the gains made in warm up they will hope can transfer to Silverstone, where they were strong last year.
Dani Pedrosa ahead of Tito Rabat. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Dani Pedrosa took seventh place. He got beaten up quite badly in the beginning of the race, in those first two hard braking zones at turns one and three. From there he pretty much followed Rossi through the pack to seventh, helped by some strong late race pace. The critical thing for Dani is a similar one to that of Maverick Vinales, being able to go fast in the beginning. There are circuits coming up which have the potential to be front tyre races, and if Dani can find what he needs, he may yet be able to make his whole MotoGP career winning one race in each season.
Eighth place went to Alex Rins. He was running sixth for much of the race, but was caught by Rossi and Pedrosa quite quickly at the end, indicating he ran out of medium rear tyre. It seems Rins ran into the same tyre wear issues that Suzuki teammate Iannone encountered throughout the year.
Johann Zarco showed what happens when you choose the soft tyre, but can’t manage it, as he came home down in ninth, despite a decent start from the Frenchman from sixth on the grid.
Alvaro Bautista managed to recover a top ten spot despite a difficult start where, like Pedrosa, he was beaten up in those initial stages. Alvaro continues to advertise himself fairly well, as he looks to seal himself a factory Ducati deal for the 2019 Superbike World Championship.
Avintia Ducati’s Tito Rabat looked to be having a strong race, running well inside the top ten for much of the 28 laps, but suffered a one-second-per-lap drop off with his soft rear tyre in the final five laps, in which he dropped from ninth to eleventh behind both Zarco and Bautista. Still, it was a strong weekend for Rabat, who seemingly didn’t need much on the electronic side to save his top ten spot.
The Austrian GP weekend was one to forget for Maverick Vinales. After his poor qualifying on Saturday – not helped by sensor issues – he could only manage twelfth place in the race. He made his typical poor start, dropping to 16th in the first lap, but didn’t have his usual late race pace. This weekend, Vinales complained that it felt like his bike had no power in the opening stages of the race. It’s hard to justify, from the outside, why that would be the case, but anyway, Vinales will be looking to the private test for Yamaha in Misano before Silverstone as an opportunity to make some progress on the bike, but you have to wonder how much he believes he can actually find anything positive at all.
An off-track excursion in the middle of the race cost Andrea Iannone badly. After that, he set four laps which were some of the fastest of the race, but he couldn’t follow it up. The questions are being asked of Iannone again – since he signed for Aprilia for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, his form has completely disappeared. This performance didn’t do much to help this situation.
Bradley Smith behind Valentino Rossi. Image courtesy of Philip Platzer/KTM
A stunning start put Bradley Smith up into the top ten at the start, but by the end of the race the British rider had dropped back to 14th. Nonetheless, a good weekend at home for KTM, picking up some more valuable World Championship points.
The final point went to Takaaki Nakagami, who was the top rookie in fifteenth, 0.9 seconds clear of Hafizh Syahrin.
Aleix Espargaro could only manage seventeenth place on the Aprilia, just ahead of a struggling Jack Miller; then Franco Morbidelli was nineteenth whilst a somewhat disgruntled Scott Redding rounded out the top twenty, a performance and result which left him very open about his opinion on the workings of the team, and also the bike.
Karel Abraham came home in twenty-first place, whilst Tom Luthi was the final finisher in 22nd.
Xavier Simeon had enjoyed his best weekend in MotoGP until lap nine of the race, when he became the only crasher of the race.
With Jorge Martin in a subpar physical condition, today’s qualifying session opened up opportunities for the rest of the Moto3 World Championship field to take pole position – especially the KTM riders, whose bikes were suited well to the Red Bull Ring.
Marco Bezzecchi at The Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of Gruppe C Photography/KTM
Indeed it was a KTM rider who took pole position in the damp-but-drying session, and who else but KTM’s one and only title contender, Marco Bezzecchi who took his first career World Championship pole position, and Pruestel GP’s second pole in a week after Jakub Kornfeil’s triumphant Saturday last week at home in Brno. Bezzecchi has looked strong all weekend – especially in the wet, and perhaps because of his future security as he has been confirmed in the Tech3 KTM Moto2 team for next season. And with that future ride in place, he made the most of the conditions to set his fastest time at the very end, when the track was at its best. Maximum points is a must for Bezzecchi tomorrow, as he has to capitalise on Martin’s injury and take profit in the championship.
Jorge Martin at The Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Jorge Martin appeared to be in a mess on Friday, and even Saturday morning. Before qualifying, he had only ridden in FP1 to try to save his strength for the important sessions. It was a questionable tactic, and one that brought back memories of Brno 2017, where Jorge missed practice sessions due to the broken leg picked up in Sachsenring and ultimately pulled out of the weekend. However, it was a tactic that clearly worked, and so did his qualifying strategy. He was reasonably quick in the wet, but nothing spectacular, but when the track dried out he was in a prime position to take advantage of the drying track. Unfortunately, Bezzecchi had marginally better timing and was able to sneak pole position, but Martin still managed second place – something that Bezzecchi was quick to congratulate him on. And rightly so, the feat of Martin was incredible; to come back one week after a broken radius and qualify second – especially on a track with so much heavy breaking – is up there with Jorge Lorenzo’s 2013 Assen comeback. A really impressive achievement for Martin, and now all eyes will be on him tomorrow to see whether he might even be able to go one better in the race.
The front row of the grid is rounded out by Albert Arenas, the first front row of his Grand Prix career, and his second visit to parc ferme, after his victory in Le Mans.
Albert Arenas at The Rdbull Ring. Image courtesy of Gold and Goose
Like Bezzecchi, Aron Canet will be hoping to take advantage of Jorge Martin’s injury tomorrow and maximise his points gain over his compatriot in the championship. Canet is still without a win this season, but will be looking to change that tomorrow from fourth on the grid. Tony Arbolino and Gabriel Rodrigo join Canet on the front row, in fifth and sixth respectively.
Marcos Ramirez starts tomorrow’s race from seventh on the grid, ahead of Tech 3’s second Moto2 signing for next season, Philipp Oettl. They are joined by another championship hopeful on row three, as Enea Bastianini starts ninth tomorrow.
It was one of Adam Norrodin’s best performances of the season in qualifying today, as he set the 10th fastest time, to head up row four on which he will be joined by Lorenzo Dalla Porta and Jaume Masia. The Spaniard was brilliant in the Austrian Grand Prix last year as a wildcard, so keep an eye on him tomorrow.
From pole position last week to thirteenth – that is the difference seven days makes to Jakub Kornfeil’s qualifying position, but expect the Czech to come on strong should the rain tyres make an appearance. He lines up alongside two Italians on the fifth row; Niccolo Antonelli and Dennis Foggia start 14th and 15th respectively.
A disappointing qualifying for Fabio Di Giannantonio left him down in sixteenth. Two Japanese join the Italian on row six, as Tatsuki Suzuki line up 17th and Ayumu Sasaki took the 18th fastest time.
Andrea Migno starts 19th, whilst Alonso Lopez rounds out the top 20 and Stefano Nepa completes row seven in 21st place.
The 22nd fastest time went to Nicolo Bulega. The positive for the Italian is that, with his typically apocalyptic starts, he will probably be last by turn one and thus be able to avoid the inevitable carnage at the tight turn one. Max Kofler, the #73 wildcard, took 23rd, and Nakarin Atiratphuvapat 24th.
25th went to Kazuki Masaki, whilst Ai Ogura was surprisingly far down the order in 26th. Ogura was impressive in the wet but when the conditions got mixed he clearly lost a lot of confidence. Darryn Binder could only manage the back of row nine in 27th.
Kaito Toba was 28th and Vicente Perez 29th. John McPhee will be 30th and last on the grid tomorrow, after his second crash of the session meant he couldn’t set a time when the track was at its best. In fact, McPhee didn’t make the qualifying time, but the stewards will let him in on account of previous evidence of his competitiveness.
After losing his championship lead last weekend in Brno, Francesco Bagnaia has hit back strongly today in the Austrian Grand Prix qualifying by dominating to take pole position by 0.310 seconds from main championship rival, and standings topper, Miguel Oliveira. It wasn’t all perfect for Bagnaia, he ran out of fuel at the very end of the session but he got his time in early, and from that point no one got near it. Typically, Bagnaia’s qualifying result is somewhat indicative of where he is on the race pace, like most Moto2 riders, and that has to be a worry for the rest of the pack ahead of tomorrow’s race.
Francesco Bagnaia at The Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
However, a second place in qualifying for Oliveira, his second decent qualifying in a row after fourth place last week, shows that KTM have definitely sorted the qualifying issues out, at least on the #44 side of the Red Bull KTM Ajo garage, that have been holding the Portuguese back in the first half of the season. From the front row of the grid, Oliveira can mount a serious victory challenge, and a win here would make him the clear favourite for the title.
The front row of the grid is rounded out by Fabio Quartararo, who is back on form this weekend at a track he has excelled at historically. If the tyre duration that the Speed Up of Quartararo has become known for over the past few races is there again tomorrow, he could be an outside shot of the podium, if not the win.
Fourth place represents Jorge Navarro’s best performance in Moto2 qualifying, a position from where he will be hoping to make the podium – which would also be a first for the Spaniard. Navarro is currently under pressure for his job for next year, with Fabio Di Giannantonio from Gresini Moto3 looking likely to slot into that squad, so a decent advert from Jorge wouldn’t go amiss in this moment.
Alex Marquez qualified fifth despite a crash towards the end of the session. With the championship basically over for Alex, his goal from here is just to win as many races as possible and, failing that, make the podium. However, he hasn’t looked particularly likely this weekend, but if it rains tomorrow, everything is out the window.
The final position on row two is taken by Mattia Pasini, which is quite impressive from the Italian on one of the more difficult circuits for his left-handed braking, no-clutch downshifting technique. The last races have been difficult for Pasini, so he will just hope for a race where he competes to the end with the front runners again.
Marcel Schrotter at The Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Marcel Schrotter took seventh place for tomorrow’s grid, ahead of Brad Binder who might have hoped for more on his 23rd birthday. Lorenzo Baldassarri suffered a crash at the end of the session, and so could only manage the ninth fastest time. That said, Baldassarri has looked quite decent this weekend, and he always races better than he qualifies, so watch out for the #7 tomorrow.
There was a crash, also, for Luca Marini. It was a shame for the lanky Italian, as he had been having a solid weekend to that point. The fall left him unable to set a time at the end, so has to make do with tenth on the grid tomorrow, with race pace holding decent potential. Remy Gardner and Iker Lecuona complete the fourth row of the grid.
Augusto Fernandez continues to perform for the HP40 Pons team, this time taking thirteenth place in qualifying, ahead of Andrea Locatelli and Romano Fenati.
Sam Lowes could only manage 16th place on the grid, ahead of Danny Kent who is another in need of a good advert – however, unlike Navarro, it isn’t arriving for Kent. Simone Corsi completes row six.
19th place went to Domi Aegerter, whilst Joan Mir could only take 20th place. Even though Mir crashed, 20th is very disappointing, especially at a track where he went so well in Moto3. But, he is another who tends to race better than he qualifies, so watch for the #36 coming through the pack.
Tetsuta Nagashima was the subject of the ‘shot of the weekend’ (so far, at least) yesterday, when he was caught in slow motion surfing his Idemitsu Honda Team Asia Kalex between turns nine and ten in the pouring rain. But, in qualifying it was only 21st for the Japanese rider.
Row eight is headed up tomorrow by Khairul Idham Pawi, who is ahead of Stefano Manzi and Joe Roberts.
Steven Odendaal at The Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Roberts and NTS teammate Steven Odendaal produced a nice moment in free practice, when they were 1-2, Odendaal leading Roberts. It showed the potential of the NTS chassis, which hopefully has got some riders interested for next year, as they are after a top rider to pilot one of their bikes next season, believing that they can be at the front with an experienced, fast rider.
As it was, though, Odendaal could only manage 25th, one place behind Roberts, but ahead of Jules Danilo and Bo Bendsneyder on row nine.
Xavi Vierge set the 28th fastest time in the first minutes of the session. He sat the rest of qualifying out in the medical centre after a second flying lap crash with Odendaal, where Vierge squeezed the South African up onto the kerb on the outside of the entry to turn one. Vierge’s rear tyre got caught with Odendaal’s front mudguard, and the Spaniard went flying over the top of the bike, and broke his wrist. As a result, Vierge is out of the weekend, so 29th-fastest Niki Tuuli will start 28th tomorrow.
Isaac Vinales will join Tuuli on the tenth row. The Spaniard is replacing Eric Granado, who was fired out of Forward Racing after Brno thanks to his other commitments in the Brazilian Superbike Championship. Vinales’ replacement at SAG, Alejandro Medina, will complete row ten.
Xavi Cardelus will start 31st, and Federico Fuligni will be 32nd and last on the grid.
101 qualifying sessions, 49 poles. That is Marc Marquez’s qualifying record in MotoGP, an unrivalled record. Perhaps, though, today’s was one of his most impressive. At Ducati’s best circuit; the one most suited to the Desmosedici, and one where Honda should theoretically struggle, he snatched the top spot away from the GP18s by all of 0.002 seconds. Marquez also looks like he can be there in the race, although track temperature could play its part in that. Cal Crutchlow made the point in Brno that if the Ducati of Jorge Lorenzo is using a had front tyre, it is probably too soft for the Honda. In FP4 today, Jorge Lorenzo ran a hard front tyre, implying that if the temperature gets high enough tomorrow, Marquez could be walking away from the Red Bull Ring – the only circuit on the calendar that he has been raced at, but not seen a Marc Marquez victory – without a winners trophy.
The favourite to stop Marquez tomorrow is the rider who finished those two thousandths of a second behind the Spaniard: Andrea Dovizioso. The #04 rider won the Austrian Grand Prix last year, as well as the last race one week ago in Brno, and has looked good all weekend. He may have missed pole position, but that is no rarity for Dovi – he comes alive on race day, and it would be a major upset if he were to be absent from the lead battle in the closing stages tomorrow.
TOp 3 in Qualifying Andrea Dovizioso, Marc Marquez, Jorge Lorenzo – Austrian GP 2018. Image courtesy of Ducati
The same could be said for Jorge Lorenzo. Since Mugello, with the exceptions of Assen and Sachsenring, Lorenzo has been able to maintain the front running pace until the end. Being such a favourable circuit for the Ducati, and one that Lorenzo’s style suits quite well in theory, Jorge was always going to be one to watch coming into this weekend, and so it has proven. Like Dovizioso and Marquez, he looks like he can maintain a similar pace to the end of the race, and if he comes out firing with the aggression he showed in Brno last week, he is going to be tough to stop. That said, it’s not like he is going to be fighting a pair of mugs. Either way, a situation where Ducati do not have a 1-2 tomorrow would be something of a disaster for the Bologna factory, even if they fill the top step.
For the first time in their history, Ducati have three bikes in the top four positions on the grid, as Danilo Petrucci took fourth place on the grid to head up the second row. Petrucci might not be able to make the tyres last for a full race distance tomorrow in the dry, but should the rain arrive – like it has done regularly over the course of this weekend – the number 9 might just be in the mix for a first career race win.
Cal Crutchlow took the fifth fastest time, despite it being perhaps his least favourite circuit on the calendar. Crutchlow doesn’t have the pace of the front riders this weekend, a podium looks a big ask, but a ‘best of the rest’ would be a respectable result for the British rider on a track where he expected to suffer a lot.
Cal Crutchlow at the Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Speaking of suffering, Yamaha did a lot of that on Saturday. Not only were the factory M1s desperately disappointing, but the satellite bike of the man they let walk away to KTM for 2019 was sixth fastest, and four tenths up on the top Movistar bike. It seems that the real Johann Zarco has stood back up, and that will sound alarm bells in the ears of all the front runners, because when Zarco is feeling good, he can cause a lot of problems for his rivals.
Tito Rabat was again very impressive, with the seventh fastest time in Q2, and he starts ahead of and alongside the factory bikes of Suzuki’s Andrea Iannone (2016 Austrian GP winner) and Honda’s Dani Pedrosa.
Tenth place went to Alex Rins, who had to come through Q1, but the big story starts when we reach the eleventh spot, and Maverick Vinales.
The #25 factory Yamaha was ahead only of 12th-placed Alvaro Bautista in the final qualifying session of the day, one second off the pole time. For reference, Vinales was 4th on the grid last year, 0.519 seconds off the pole time with a 1’23.754. Today, Vinales was 11th, 1.043 seconds off pole position with a time of 1’24.284. So, in one year Yamaha have gotten half a second slower. Okay, so, some of that can be put down to track development, since there had only been 75 minutes of slick running before qualifying, but in comparison Marquez’s time was only six thousandths of a second off his pole time of last year. To add to that, Valentino Rossi’s qualifying time last year was a 1’23.982, compared to his time this year of a 1’24.309. So, also, Rossi went four tenths slower this year. Of course, we have known for a while that Yamaha have had problems with acceleration, and they probably haven’t been helped this weekend by the changeable conditions, but to arrive at a circuit and go slower than they managed a year ago when the competitors are not really any slower at all is embarrassing, especially for a factory with the winning history of Yamaha. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Yamaha is that they have known about their issues probably for longer than the public have, and the public have been aware since Barcelona last year. It was so bad today, that the Yamaha MotoGP Project Leader, Kouji Tsuya, delayed the media debriefs of the two factory riders to publicly apologise to them in front of the media for the poor performance of the bike this weekend. Apologies aside, tomorrow is going to be just as embarrassing and disappointing, if not more so, as today, and the Iwata manufacturer will have to hope that this is the bottom of the pit they fell into last year, and that the bottom is elasticated, because they really need to bounce back.
Back to qualifying, and it was a brilliant session for Bradley Smith, who nearly made Q2, missing out for all of 0.015 seconds.
Smith also beat Valentino Rossi by 0.064 seconds, a big scalp for the KTM-shod Brit. 14th represents Rossi’s worst qualifying since Australia 2016 when he was 15th. He finished Australia 2016 2nd, behind Cal Crutchlow, but a repeat of that in the race, in any condition, would be beyond miraculous, such is the hole both he and Yamaha have found themselves in, particularly this weekend. Rossi’s result, combined with Vinales’, meant that it was the first time since 2007 that both factory Yamahas had finished outside the top ten in a dry qualifying.
Aleix Espargaro has had a difficult weekend, presumably still suffering with the injury from Germany, but nonetheless managed to qualifying fifteenth.
Franco Morbidelli at Redbull Ring. Image courtesy of HondaProracing.
Sixteenth on the grid tomorrow should reserved for Franco Morbidelli, who would line up alongside Jack Miller and Hafizh Syahrin on the sixth row of the grid. However, the Italian picked up a grid penalty of three positions for cruising in free practice. So it’s nineteenth for the reigning Moto2 World Champion, and Miller heads up row six from Syahrin and Simeon.
Scott Redding will start twentieth tomorrow and Taka Nakagami completes the revised row seven that has Morbidelli at its head.
The eighth and final row only has two riders this weekend, because Pol Espargaro is recovering from his nasty high side in Brno last week. It’s Tom Luthi and Karel Abraham who complete the 23-rider grid, in 22nd and 23rd respectively.
The two British Superbike races in Thruxton were of course always going to be entirely about tyres, the rider that could manage their Pirelli rear slick the best would inevitably come out on top.
In race one, that rider was, somewhat surprisingly, Leon Haslam. It was a disappointing qualifying for the championship leader, making only the fourth row and going out of Q2, but he made a strong start, and made good progress in the early laps to give himself a good position to allow himself to save the tyre. Whilst Haslam had been fighting through, Luke Mossey had taken off at the front, but Haslam ensure that it was he who claimed the lead when Mossey came back to the pack. From there, he battled with Jake Dixon for the win in the final laps, and had enough tyre at the end to not allow Jake to get close enough to make a move on the final lap. It was Haslam’s first ever win in Thruxton, and a well-deserved one after such a tough battle through the pack.
As such, Jake Dixon’s second place was an important one, as he only lost two points (in podium credits) to Haslam in the championship, and stay within reach as the Showdown draws closer – just two rounds left before the final three championship-deciding rounds.
The two championship leaders were again fighting in race two, this time Dixon coming out on top as he took the final podium spot from Haslam on the final lap, another important result for Dixon as he took a point out of Haslam’s podium credit advantage. Haslam’s fourth place marked the first race since race one in Brands Indy that he had not made the podium.
Josh Brookes also had a mixed day in Thruxton, with a fourth in race one and a win in the second outing. His race one result was mainly down to a short gearing on the McAMS Yamaha, which was hitting the limiter on the run down to the final chicane, which made him vulnerable to attacks as well as making it difficult for the Aussie to make passes. The first race also had a hint of controversy for Brookes, as he put a seriously on-the-limit move on Jason O’Halloran for third place at the final chicane, but ran the pair of them wide, and allowed Peter Hickman onto the podium in third place. Race two went much better for Brookes, as he took the lead early on, and as the pack battled behind he duly cleared off, building a lead of over one second, which he then managed to the flag. That’s three wins in four races for Brookes, and he will be hoping to add to that in Cadwell Park in two weeks’ time.
Glenn Irwin at Thruxton 2018. Image courtesy of Ducati
It wasn’t such a good weekend for Glenn Irwin. Whilst he was able to snag pole position on Saturday, his and the PBM Ducati’s tyre management wasn’t up to a podium challenge, as he went 5-9. Whilst Irwin admitted that he was disappointed to have not been able to challenge for the podium, or the win, he was pleased with the speed that he and the team had showed over the course of the weekend. It’s worth remembering that Thruxton is a very unique round with such a large emphasis on tyre management, and as such form is somewhat thrown out. Expect Irwin to be back at the sharp end in Cadwell, a favourite circuit of the Northern Irishman.
Bradley Ray had another difficult weekend, crashing out of the first race, taking two others with him, and only taking four points from race two with a twelfth place. This was especially disappointing after it seemed that Ray had rediscovered his early-season feeling and form in qualifying, after some positive findings in testing prior to the weekend with regards to the front end. Since Brands Indy, Ray’s form has been abysmal, falling as often as he has scored. The next two rounds, in Cadwell and Silverstone, will be critical for the Suzuki rider, as he looks to return to the front before the Showdown begins.
Danny Buchan could only manage two DNFs in Thruxton, but still maintained his final Showdown spot in the championship. His first race retirement was due to being caught up in Brad Ray’s crash. Ray lost the front on the change of direction in the final chicane whilst trying to pass Buchan round the outside. Unfortunately, Buchan had nowhere to go so was left on the floor, and it was a similar story in race two, as he went down in an incident with Shaun Winfield.
Peter Hickman’s double podium came just a few hours after he was discharged from hospital. The 2018 Senior TT winner was hospitalised on Saturday night with what turned out to be a kidney infection, but was discharged just before noon on Sunday, giving him just enough time to get to the track in time for the first race. He somewhat lucked in to the first rostrum, benefiting from the incident between Brookes and O’Halloran, but in race two he was superb, managing the tyre better than almost anyone, but he was just too late to catch Brookes despite lapping significantly faster at the end. Either way, and despite the illness, this was Hickman’s best event of the year, at least in BSB, and he took his first two podiums of the season. Afterwards he admitted that the second half of the season is his better portion, and he will be aiming to continue to take lumps out of the advantage of Buchan in the championship – which currently stands at seven points – as he looks to make the Showdown.
Christian Iddon had something of a nightmare on Thruxton race day. Unfortunately, he was unable to achieve the distance on the tyre that he needed through the weekend, and it showed in the races. He took thirteenth in race one, and after softening everything up in race two, destroyed the tyre still, to the extent that he flicked himself over the high side coming out of the chicane on lap fourteen. He hit the barrier but was okay.
Jason O’Halloran enjoyed a return to form in Thruxton. He got unlucky in race one with Brookes’ move, but was running at the front, which was an improvement on Brands Hatch. In race two he received a 2.1 second penalty for cutting the final chicane, but fortunately for the Aussie he had enough of a gap over seventh place to not lose a spot. O’Halloran is not yet out of the Showdown, only 25 points behind Buchan in that sixth spot, and had five races to make up that difference to get himself into championship contention.
Michael Laverty had a disaster in qualifying, making only nineteenth spot. He came through to ninth on the first lap of race one but was the third rider involved in Brad Ray’s lap two crash. Without that, his day could have been entirely different, with a good result in race one and a decent grid spot in the second race. As it was, he took no points from the first race and had a bad grid spot for race two, in which he finished thirteenth. A case of ‘what could have been’ for Laverty.
Sunday was fantastic for Tarran Mackenzie. Qualifying was a disaster for him, as bike issues prevented him from even setting a lap in Q1, meaning he had to start last for race one, in which he finished ninth, only 9 seconds off the win. He got a better grid for race two, and fought for the podium until the end, but was unable to pass, so could ‘only’ manage fifth. Anyway, it was another very impressive meeting for Mackenzie, and proved that Brands Hatch was no fluke for his results. That first podium isn’t too far away now.
It was another disappointing weekend for James Ellison. A tough qualifying meant his race day was always going to be a tough one, and so it proved as he went 12-15.
It wasn’t a much better day for Richard Cooper who didn’t finish the first race, and could only manage 14th in race two.
Tommy Bridewell continued his good form with the Moto Rapido Ducati, though, going 11-7, although he was closed down in the championship by Luke Mossey who went 7-8.
Dan Linfoot, of course, was absent after his Brands Hatch crash and resulting injury, but Andrew Irwin had another impressive weekend, despite a crash in race one. Race two went better for the rookie, finishing ninth. But Andrew didn’t completely destroy his tyre, and he set the fastest time of the weekend in Q2. His learning curve isn’t getting much shallower, his progress is really impressive.
8th in race one and 10th in race two represent Mason Law’s best weekend of the season in his rookie year, and he put some big moves down too. Mason’s talent has never been in doubt, but a performance like this is testament to that; a double top ten from a rookie in Thruxton is a very impressive scorecard.
Chrissy Rouse went very well in race one, but suffered a nasty crash on lap on in race two. Hopefully the youngster will be back strong in Cadwell Park.
For Gino Rea, it wasn’t such a brilliant weekend, with a DNF in race one and only a 17th in race two. Contrary to that, Sylvain Barrier had perhaps his best race of the season in the first outing, with fourteenth, but he could only manage eighteenth in the second race.
It was also Shaun Winfield’s best weekend of the season, as he made Q2. He then took sixteenth in race one, but dropped out of race two when he had contact with Danny Buchan.
Martin Jessopp picked up his second point of 2018 in race one with fifteenth, and came home sixteenth, two seconds off the final point in the second race.
The Moto2 Pack bunched up at Brno. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Brno was probably the best Moto2 race of the season. In fact, it definitely was. For once, Miguel Oliveira qualified and fought at the front for the whole race. And what a fight it was. Between himself, Francesco Bagnaia, Luca Marini and later Lorenzo Baldassarri, there was some stunning action and, whilst it boiled down to what was ultimately a two-way scrap for the win between Miguel and Marini, that two-way scrap proved to be one of the highlights of the year.
Oliveira came out the victor of that battle against the comparatively inexperienced Marini, and with that he took the championship lead heading into this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix – KTM’s home round, as well as that of the title sponsor. A win for Oliveira this weekend would not only strengthen his position atop the championship, it would also be perfectly timed from the point of view of his employer and their backers. Furthermore, KTM are currently on two consecutive wins and the last time they had two wins on the bounce, they went and took a third in succession too. That was in the last three races of last season, where both Oliveira and Brad Binder dominated the 2017 series champion, Franco Morbidelli. A repeat at this stage in the season could put Oliveira well in the driving seat for the 2018 Moto2 World Championship with just under half the season remaining.
That said, last year was not such a great round for the KTM Moto2 squad, and especially for Oliveira. The Portuguese crashed out of turn eight when closing down the leaders, with what was quite a big high side. Meanwhile, Brad Binder could only manage seventh place, nine seconds off the win. It would be a surprise to see them so far away this year, but if Oliveira has a return to his usual 2018 qualifying form, it could spell disaster for the championship hopeful, when you consider the pileup at turn one last year.
Miguel Oliveira at Brno 2018. Image courtesy of Marcin Kin/KTM
Pecco Bagnaia needs to hit back on Sunday. He looked good after Assen, and Sachsenring had shaped up well for him before Sunday, but with bad luck in the German GP and just losing out in the battle at the end of the Czech GP, ending up third, he is now on the back foot in the championship. On the positive side, Bagnaia still looks like one of two strongest riders in the last races, and ultimately it has been circumstance that has seen him lose his championship advantage. Also, the second Sky Racing Team VR46 rider, Luca Marini, has turned up in the last couple of weekends, so if it is needed Bagnaia has a rear gunner.
But Marini is also out for himself, obviously, and as he proved last week he has the potential to fight strongly for the win himself. Marini has come almost from nowhere in the last three races, but the short summer break worked perfectly for him, as he was able to keep the momentum he built in the Dutch and German GPs – taking his first front row in Assen and first podium in Germany – into Brno where he fought for the victory for the first time. Now, he has gone 3-2 in the last two races, leaving the first position as the next logical step, right?
With the improvement in the second side of the Sky VR46 squad, it is even more critical that Brad Binder becomes a consistent podium/victory contender. Other than his win in Sachsenring, Binde hasn’t really featured at the front all season, at least not for a full race. His Germany win proved that he has the potential to be there, he just needs to be there more often, and the Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring would be the perfect time for him to return to the podium.
Lorenzo Baldassarri has had a few difficult races. Assen was positive, and he could have won until he suffered the puncture. In Germany he dropped out before it was possible to judge what his potential was. Brno went better, though with a fourth place which could have been a podium, or even a win, but his tyre was destroyed by the end of the race, so he had nothing to fight with for the podium. He has taken some criticism, because he basically cost Bagnaia – a fellow VR46 Riders’ Academy member, and flatmate – the chance to fight for the victory in the last lap by passing him in the middle of the turn 11/12 chicane but ultimately he is out on the track for himself and he thought he would have the chance for the win, but to pass three riders in one lap is almost impossible. For sure, he cost himself and Bagnaia the shot at the victory with the move he made, but he had to try, because if he didn’t try, for the sake of another rider, there is no point in being there – it’s mid-season, you wouldn’t expect team orders at this stage, so why he should be expected to help someone from another team is a little strange. Anyway, this weekend presents a fresh opportunity for Baldassarri, and with Lorenzo, you just don’t know what you are going to get.
The weather looks like it is going to play its part this weekend. Rain is predicted for the whole weekend, and last year, when it rained, the track was a disaster – riders were crashing almost by the second and reaching the barriers with regularity. Safety is definitely a weak point of the Red Bull Ring, and several riders have spoken of their worry ahead of the race weekend about the danger in wet conditions, so hopefully those concerns will be alleviated, either by fair weather or by decent track conditions, although both are unfortunately unlikely.
For round eleven of the 2018 Moto3 World Championship, Marco Bezzecchi leads the lightweight field to Austria, and the Red Bull Ring (or, A1 Ring if you’re sponsored by another energy drinks company).
Of course, Bezzecchi leading the championship at this stage is important, since it is also KTM’s home race. It means that the 40,000 people populating the KTM stand on Sunday will be able to see one of their chosen factory’s riders fighting to maintain the lead of the championship. However, coming off such a difficult weekend in Brno last week Bezzecchi will be hoping to return to his form of the first half of the year, where he was on the podium in six out of the nine races. And, of course, KTM would love for their sole championship challenger to take the win at their home event.
Marco Bezzecchi at Brno 2018. Image courtesy of Marcin Kin/KTM
The person most likely to deny Bezzecchi the title, Jorge Martin, who is trying to come back this weekend. He broke his radius last weekend in Brno in the first practice session on Friday morning, putting him out of last weekend’s Czech GP. The doctors have allowed Martin to compete, it would really be little surprise to see him fighting at the front – remember last year, when he was in tears in parc ferme after making the podium with his 5-week-old broken leg.
Even if Bezzecchi can’t take full advantage of Martin’s broken radius for the second week running, the Spaniard’s Gresini Racing teammate, Fabio Di Giannantonio, may well make the number 88 pay. He took his first win last week, making up for the disappointment of Le Mans, and the feeling has been that one win would set the Italian up to become a regular Grand Prix winner. We will begin to find out whether Diggia will go the route of Jorge Martin, and become a serial victor, or the route of Enea Bastianini, and wait still for months before another victory.
Speaking of Bastianini; he is without a podium since he was third in Assen, at which point he was looking like someone who could come back into championship contention. Since then, though, he crashed in Germany and could only manage fourth in Brno, which in reality wasn’t such a bad result considering the weekend he had. Nonetheless, he benefited from Martin’s injury last week, and is still in the mix for the championship – if very much on the outside – but this weekend will require a big result for La Bestia if he wants to close more on the top.
Enea Bastianini at Brno 2018. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
The fifth and final realistic championship contender is Aron Canet, who has been completely under the radar this year, and is the only rider in the fight without a win. In fact, Brno was only Canet’s fourth podium of the year, but it’s been his finishing ratio that has helped Canet’s challenge, only crashing out of one race – Jerez. A win this weekend would make Canet an absolute contender, although he was only fifth last year, 3.5 seconds off the victorious Joan Mir.
This summer, Europe has been in the middle of a heatwave, and it has had a big impact on the World Championship, bringing higher-than-expected track temperatures which have especially affected MotoGP. However, this weekend, it looks like it will be wet throughout, which could have a big impact on the result, with perhaps some unlikely riders finding the podium. Of course, Moto3 is the only category in the World Championship to have had a wet race this year, back in Argentina when Bezzecchi won his one and only race. It could be bad for Martin, though, as he will be conscious of his injury, and may be very cautious so as to not worsen the damage to his wrist. On the other hand, it could be great for Martin, because the riders with nothing to lose – such as a John McPhee, a Jakub Kornfeil, or a Gabriel Rodrigo – could arrive and take points off his rivals, meaning he wouldn’t lose too many points to his competitors should he be ruled out through injury.
After scoring pole position on Saturday, his first in Moto3, Jakub Kornfeil went into Sunday’s Moto3 Czech Grand Prix with hopes of delivering his home crowd a top result.
From the off, it looked as though it would be on the cards, as the most experienced rider in the lightweight class field got to turn one first, and duly scarpered, pulling a second on the field in the first lap. Kornfeil managed to hold that gap, too, for a small while, but after a couple of laps, the pack pulled their respective fingers out, and quickly closed erased the advantage the pole sitter had built in the initial stages of the race.
Jakub Kornfeil falling back into the pack. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
At this point, it looked like a normal, chaotic, Moto3 race, with all fifteen points scoring positions, plus a few more, locked together in the fight for the win.
This was good for several people, especially the likes of Marco Bezzecchi and Enea Bastianini who were looking to take advantage of Jorge Martin’s absence, but were having to do so from poor grid positions, fourteenth for Bezzecchi and tenth for Bastianini.
On the other hand, Aron Canet appeared at one stage as though he would have the pace to break the pack or at least split the group, setting several fastest laps on his early charge through the field to the front, but once he arrived at the head of the pack, he could do nothing about their attention.
It was a similar story for Fabio Di Giannantonio, who should have been on pole before all of the mistiming occurred on Saturday afternoon. The Italian was at the front for less than half a lap before he started to pull away, along with Gabriel Rodrigo, but a mistake for the number 21 Gresini rider at turn ten made all that work null and void, as he was sucked back into the group.
Further back through the field, but still in the front group, there were many changes of position, riders climbing up the rankings, only to steadily fall back again, whilst some hung around the same spot, unable to advance their standing. It was the most “Moto3” Moto3 race of the season, the group stayed together for almost the whole race, and when it split in the closing stages, there were still ten riders in victory contention.
Di Giannantonio 1st and Canet 2nd in Brno 2018. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Especially, though, it was Di Giannantonio, Kornfeil and Canet who were looking likely to take the top step, all looking for firsts of some kind: both Di Giannantonio and Kornfeil were looking for their first Moto3 World Championship victories and Canet was in search of his first of 2018.
This doesn’t always happen – especially in races as frenetic, confusing and chaotic as Moto3 group races – but on this occasion it did, the fastest riders over the course of the race being the ones fighting it out for the victory.
Finally, it was the should-have-been pole sitter, Fabio Di Giannantonio who righted the wrongs of Le Mans – where the Race Direction committed daylight robbery – and took his first (official) Moto3 World Championship victory.
Twenty-two years on from Valentino Rossi’s first Grand Prix victory in Brno, back in 1996 in the 125cc class, there are of course many comparisons to make between the nine-times World Champion and Di Giannantonio – ironically one of the Italians not associated with the VR46 empire. However, on a weekend where the shadow cast by the biggest stars of Grand Prix motorcycle racing is under particular scrutiny, it seems like a bad moment and, after all, this is Fabio’s first win, perhaps he might even deserve all of the attention for this one.
Either way, Di Giannantonio’s ride was sublime, with some stunningly tough moves on both Kornfeil and Oettl in the middle of the stadium section. His confidence was immense, and ultimately undeniable. Furthermore, Di Giannantonio spent a lot of time in the front five positions, a crucial thing if you want to fight for the victory, and a sign of a rider with a good feeling, because it means they are always able to respond, even to their fastest rivals. Now we have to see whether this victory will act like Jorge Martin’s first win, and open the floodgates for Diggia, who moved to second in the championship and just 17 points off the top spot. All of a sudden he is right back in the championship hunt, and could prove to be Martin’s biggest threat for the title.
Aron Canet was second over the line, little over a tenth behind Di Giannantonio. It was a strong ride from the Spaniard, perhaps his best of the year and his strongest challenge for victory since Qatar. Like Diggia, he stayed pretty much in the top positions for the whole race, losing out only through the strength of Di Giannantonio, and no fault of his own, something from which he can take big motivation and confidence into the next races. Also, Canet is now only 21 points back on the championship lead, and like Di Giannantonio is still right in the title fight.
Whilst a dream would have been the dream of Kornfeil going into Sunday, he had to make do with third place, whish is still far beyond what probably anyone expected him to achieve. KTM had a new frame for this weekend, a softer one to try to negate a little bit the problem they have been having in trying to get the bike turned, especially mid-corner. It seemed to work a treat for Kornfeil, as he had his best weekend of the year, and fully deserved the podium position he walked away with, and no doubt he brought a lot of smiles to the faces of the Czech fans who were out in their droves to watch Sunday’s action.
Enea Bastianini at Brno 2018. Image courtesy of HondaProRacing
Fourth over the line was Enea Bastianini, who passed Gabriel Rodrigo on the final lap to demote the Argentine to fifth, but was too late to mount an assault on the podium. Again, it was an important points haul for Bastianini who now lies 36 points off the championship lead, and is not entirely out of contention. But if he wants to take the lightweight class crown in what will probably be his final year in Moto3 he will need to have a strong run of races in the coming rounds.
Behind fifth-placed Rodriog was the new championship leader, Marco Bezzecchi, who recovered quite well from a poor weekend to take sixth spot. It was the first race in which Bezzecchi has finished, but not inside the podium places. However, he did perhaps more than was expected after Saturday, when he qualified fourteenth, and gave KTM the championship lead going into the Austrian manufacturer’s home race in a weeks’ time, a round where he will hope to return to the podium, and maybe even win at a track which on paper should suit his bike and style quite well.
Seventh place went to Marcos Ramirez, who continued his good form from Sachsenring; Philipp Oettl was eighth, ahead of Albert Arenas and Lorenzo Dalla Porta who rounded out the top ten.
Niccolo Antonelli had one of his best races in recent times, but in the end could only manage eleventh, ahead of compatriot and fellow VR46 academy rider, Dennis Foggia who was running strongly all race but dropped back in the final two laps. Thirteenth over the line was Kazuki Masaki, ahead of Tatsuki Suzuki and Tony Arbolino who was the final points scorer.
Nakarin Atiratphuvapat took sixteenth spot, whilst Jaume Masia was seventeenth, ahead of Alonso Lopez, Nicolo Bulega and Andrea Migno who completed the top twenty. Vicente Perez took twenty-first place, in front of Ayumu Sasaki, Darryn Binder and Filip Salac.
There were only four retirements: Kaito Toba, John McPhee, Stefano Nepa and Adam Norrodin.
