Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Ajo)
beat Di Giannantonio and Bagnaia with a perfect last lap on Sunday (May 22,
2016) at the Gran Premio d’Italia Moto3 World Championship race. The sun blazed
overhead, the ground temperature edging above 34°C as the 33 rider strong field
lined up on the grid. Italians featured heavily in the top ten. Romano Fenati
(SKY Racing Team VR46) began his home race from pole position.
Fenati shot off the line and
held his advantage into Turn 1, Brad Binder moving up to third with Andrea
Migno (SKY Racing Team VR46) splitting the two front-runners. The straight was home
to thrilling action as the leading group went five abreast into San Donato,
riders easily going from first to fifth in just a few meters. Each lap saw more
and more riders join the battle, the slipstream closing the pack up with each
run down the 1.141km long straight as the top 20 were all within touching
distance.
Replacement rider Lorenzo
Dalla Porta (Schedl GP Racing) had an incredible start to the race, finding
himself comfortably inside the top ten and able to battle with the World
Championship regulars. Dalla Porta wasn’t the only new name out at the front,
rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio (Gresini Racing Moto3) taking the lead on several
occasions in front of his home crowd.
Disaster struck on lap ten for
pole setter Roman Fenati as his bike expired while he tried to move into first,
the Italian rolling off the track and withdrawing from the race. Fenati’s
heartbreak presented a big opportunity for the likes of Fabio Quartararo
(Leopard Racing) who made his way up into the frontrunners having started 18th,
the Frenchman able to lead at several points.
The championship hopefuls
continued to encounter difficulties, Jorge Navarro (Estrella Galicia 0,0)
coming off at Turn 15 on lap 12 after contact with another rider. This left
Binder fighting for victory with his two closest rivals out of the race, the
South African guaranteed to leave Mugello with the championship lead.
Aspar Mahindra rider Pecco Bagnaia took a third podium finish in
the sixth race of the 2016 season, finishing only seven hundredths of a second
from a first race win after 20 breath-taking laps in Sunday’s thrilling Italian
GP.
Run at the magnificent Mugello
circuit in a scenic mountainous setting outside Florence, the race was an
epically close battle. Every lap looked like the first, as a pack of 20 or more
riders ran into the first corner four or five abreast. Shoving, scraping and
scrapping, the order changed constantly in a spectacular display of world class
racing for the capacity crowd.
Second Aspar Mahindra rider
Jorge Martin was part of the pack, running as high as eighth place several
times, but crossing the line 14th. He was still just two seconds away from the
winner in the thick of the brawl: the first 21 finishers were within five
seconds of winner Brad Binder (KTM).
Mahindra has a perfect 2016
points record; and Bagnaia’s third time in third place lifted him to fifth
overall in the points.
The 19-year-old Italian had
set the second-fastest qualifying time, only to be bumped back to the third row
for straying minutely over the track limits. Undaunted, he finished the first
lap in fifth place and played a leading role in the scrabbling pack for the
full race distance.
Source: MotoGP/ Aspar Mahindra