Japanese rider Tatsuki Suzuki (Honda) has won the Moto3 race of the Andalusian Grand Prix, the third World Championship race at the Jerez-Ángel Nieto Circuit, beating John McPhee and Celestino Vietti, while still leading Albert Arenas (KTM) fell eight laps to the end and made a strong sprain in his ankle.
Leaving from the ‘pole position’, Suzuki has always been in the leading group and, in the key laps, has led the race without giving any option to its rivals. He has pulled hard, confident, and at an unattainable pace to win his first race in this World Cup.
Despite attempts by Scottish John McPhee (Honda) and Italian Celestino Vietti (KTM), Suzuki has always stayed on top and without the need to aggressively close gaps. A victory, moreover, which puts him fully in the fight for the championship.
And it is that the blow of the race, beyond the fight for victory, has been the fall of the leader of the World Cup and winner of the first two races, the Girona Albert Arenas (KTM), who has fallen in the corner 11 and has taken a strong blow.
After losing the front train of his motorbike, the Girona rider went to the gravel and was hit by his Honda, which catapulted him to a fall from a certain height. Retired on a stretcher, he has arrived at the medical center walking on his own foot. The diagnosis, according to his team, is that he has nothing broken but a strong sprain in his left ankle.
Despite this, it has been a fairly clean race, with a smooth start. In fact, the first incident came on lap 8 with a fight between Andrea Migno and Ayumu Sasaki that ended with both on the ground. With a group of 12 riders at the helm, the leadership has been changing hands.
With a high pace of race, higher than the last Spanish Grand Prix in this same circuit, this group has been established nourished and even until, in this same eighth lap, there has been a key fall for the race and, who knows, if for the World Cup just like the fall of Arenas.
The Spaniard Jaume Masià (Honda) went to the ground at turn 9 of the Jerez track and took the Japanese Ai Ogura (Honda) ahead. The fourth in the World Cup standings has thrown the second. Both have followed the race but have finally had to retire.
Outside the podium – made up of Suzuki, McPhee and Vietti – South African Darryn Binder (KTM) was fourth, coming off the 25th position on the grid and leading a great comeback. He came in fifth, behind the Spaniard Jeremy Alcoba (Honda), but he was penalized with 3 seconds of penalty after not making a ‘long lap’ to get out of the limits of the track.
Gabriel Rodrigo (Honda), despite finishing third and leading, lost speed and finished fifth, but far from the battle for the podium. Raúl Fernández (KTM), in a similar situation, finished sixth and Sergio García Dols (Estrella Galícia 0.0), eighth behind the sanctioned Alcova.
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