With a new championship #2, vital championship mistakes and a surprise winner, Misano is a race you don’t want to miss.
After last week’s amazing race, what does Misano have in store? A notoriously difficult circuit for rookies, will we see Acosta suffer and Garcia come out on top, or have they been spooked? Stay tuned to find out.
Andrea Migno, Niccolo Antonelli and Romano Fenati all get away well, with Pedro Acosta pushing early on to catch up to Sergio Garcia.
Daryn Binder has had a great race start, going from 14th to 8th within the span of one lap.
Then, Elia Bartonlini crashes out of the race during the second lap, nearly taking out Kaito Toba in the process.
Back at the front, it’s still an Italian top three.
There is an incident between Jaume Masia and Garcia at turn 8. Desperate to get ahead of the championship leader, Garcia rubs his front tire into Masia’s body/bike. While it does not seem like a major incident, he rubbed against him so hard that there was smoke coming from Garcia’s front tire.
Per usual to Fenati, he is already beginning to create a lead ahead of Antonelli and Foggia.
Taking a look at the world championship leaders, Acosta has not seen a podium in three races, now. He is currently in 9th place ahead of Artigas while Garcia is in 7th. Acosta is over one second behind the leading group. It’s clear he is struggling at the difficult Misano World Circuit.
The top team at the moment is the Leopard Racing Team of Foggia and Artigas.
On lap 10, Antonelli has fallen down to 7th. With Antonelli down to 7th, Fenati has a 1.89 second lead ahead of Foggia.
Binder has made his way to 4th, looking to claim a podium for the first time since Doha.
The top three at the moment is Fenati, with a 2.5 second lead, Foggia in 2nd and Migno right behind him.
Masia is the top KTM on the circuit, making this one of the first races in a while where the orange and blue bikes haven’t led the GP’s.
If Fenati can continue this, he will be under 50 points away from Pedro Acosta, and his championship run will continue.
Then, in a surprise twist, Romano Fenati crashes out! In what looks like an extremely painful crash. It was hard to see the mistake happen, as it happened too fast. With Fenati out, Foggia, Migno, Garcia and Binder are the top four riders. If things remain the way they are now, Foggia would move to be 2nd in the World Championship ahead of Sergio Garcia.
Up until recently, it was hard to see anyone else but Acosta and Foggia as the championship threats.
Garcia needs to begin making moves if he wants to stop Foggia from taking his place in the championship. He has met the last couple of races in point-losing moments that he couldn’t afford then, let alone afford now. He needs to remain focused.
Jeremy Alcoba, who started the race by falling back to 25th, has made his way up to 16th. The two Gresini Racing riders have not been a part of the top battles as of late. They had such a strong start to the season
On the other hand, Deniz Oncu, who crashed out so hard yesterday that he was unconscious for over 30 minutes, is in an impressive 17th place.
With three laps to go, Oncu is given a long lap penalty for exceeding track limits.
Then, with two laps to go, Garcia has been given a track limits warning.
On the last lap, there was clear contact with Masia and the GASGAS rider of Garcia. Antonelli has fought his way back up to 2nd place, but Garcia has made multiple mistakes. It looks like there is going to be an Italian lockout.
And it is!
Foggia has back to back wins with Antonelli and Migno right behind him.
