Argentina Moto3: Bezzecchi scores dominant maiden win
Valentino Rossi protege Marco Bezzecchi scored his maiden Moto3 victory in dominant fashion at a wet Termas de Rio Hondo.
Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
The race started under wet conditions but, with the asphalt expected to dry up, a handful of riders including polesitter Tony Arbolino decided to start on slicks.
The Snipers team rider, along with Niccolo Bulega, Nakarin Atiratphuvapat and Marcos Ramirez, fell to the back of the grid right after the start of the race.
Jorge Martin and Philipp Oettl lost even more time as they started the formation lap on wets but decided to go into the pits to switch to slicks instead of lining up on the grid.
Bezzecchi, second on the grid, immediately moved into the lead and quickly pulled away from the rest of the riders.
For the majority of the race, the PrustelGP rider had consistently better pace than the main chasing group, and he only gave up a few seconds of his lead during the final few laps.
He still won by 4.6s over Aron Canet, who emerged victorious in a race-long fight with Fabio di Giannantonio and Jaume Masia.
He finished just two tenths ahead of di Giannantonio, the duo eventually completing the podium untroubled as Masia crashed on the penultimate lap.
Leopard's Enea Bastianini finished fourth followed by Adam Norrodin (Petronas Sprinta), who secured the best Moto3 result of his career.
Rookie Alonso Lopez took an impressive sixth in his only second Moto3 race, followed by Lorenzo Dalla Porta (Leopard) and Niccolo Antonelli (SIC58).
Home rider Gabriel Rodrigo had to settle for ninth from third on the grid.
Only a few laps into the race, the riders on slicks were able to match the pace of the wets, but they never had a decisive advantage and thus had no chance of fighting for the top positions. Arbolino ended up best of those running on slicks in 10th, ahead of Martin and Ramirez.
Apart from Masia, Dennis Foggia was another impressive rookie to crash out from the top 10 late in the race, with Darryn Binder - who was taken out by Kaito Toba - Albert Arenas, Tatsuki Suzuki and Makar Yurchenko all having incidents.
Race results
Pos. | Rider | Bike | Gap |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Marco Bezzecchi | KTM | |
2 | Aron Canet | Honda | 4.689 |
3 | Fabio Di Giannantonio | Honda | 4.963 |
4 | Enea Bastianini | Honda | 5.818 |
5 | Adam Norrodin | Honda | 9.112 |
6 | Alonso Lopez | Honda | 13.349 |
7 | Lorenzo Dalla Porta | Honda | 13.925 |
8 | Niccolo Antonelli | Honda | 14.363 |
9 | Gabriel Rodrigo | KTM | 16.573 |
10 | Tony Arbolino | Honda | 24.299 |
11 | Jorge Martin | Honda | 25.373 |
12 | Marcos Ramirez | KTM | 26.060 |
13 | Andrea Migno | KTM | 26.376 |
14 | Jakub Kornfeil | KTM | 26.488 |
15 | Livio Loi | KTM | 26.537 |
16 | Ayumu Sasaki | Honda | 29.252 |
17 | John McPhee | KTM | 32.937 |
18 | Nakarin Atiratphuvapat | Honda | 33.892 |
19 | Kaito Toba | Honda | 37.665 |
20 | Kazuki Mazaki | KTM | 38.202 |
21 | Tatsuki Suzuki | Honda | 1'02.305 |
22 | Darryn Binder | KTM | 1'17.384 |
23 | Philipp Ottl | KTM | 1'36.986 |
24 | Makar Yurchenko | KTM | 1 lap |
Ret | Jaume Masia | KTM | 2 laps |
Ret | Dennis Foggia | KTM | 3 laps |
Ret | Albert Arenas | KTM | 4 laps |
Ret | Nicolo Bulega | KTM | 5 laps |
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