MOTO3: Sergio Garcia Takes A Photo Finish Victory In Mugello.
By Dawn Hammersley
Sergio Garcia Takes His Third Victory Of The 2022 Season As Dennis Foggia Crashes Out.
Deniz Oncu was on pole position for the Gran Premio D’Italia Oakley Gran Prix in Mugello, Daniel Holgado was in second position on the grid, Dennis Foggia rounded out the front row in third position. Aymumu Saksaki was not taking part in the Moto3 race due to having a crash in Friday’s Free Practice proceedings. Rivacold Snipers Team’s Alberto Surra was also out of racing action today after a crash in yesterday’s Qualifying session.
Deniz Oncu got the holeshot into turn one, Britain’s Scott Ogden crashed out on the start finish straight after getting clipped by Taiyo Furusato.
There was a three-way train at the front from Oncu to Izan Guevara in third place. The second group of riders was led by Tatsuki Suzuki. With 18 laps to go Guevara was in the lead, Diogo Moreria was in third place.
There were no leading groups with 17 laps to go, all the riders had bunched up, Oncu was back in front, Stefano Nepa crashed out whilst in 12th place. Dennis Foggia got to the front of the pack for the first time in the race, team-mate Suzuki was in third place.
Jaume Masia got pushed to the back of the field after being caught up in the Nepa incident.
Suzuki took the lead, not for long as Guevara took charge of proceedings, Foggia was in second place. With 14 laps to go the riders were six a breast over line, with Foggia getting back to the front. The front pack consisted of 11 riders; the top three riders had a gap of 0.557s to the rest of the field.
Riccardo Rossi was up-to third place and set the fastest lap of the race so far, Foggia was still leading the race, the Italian home rider just looked to be making a break from the rest of the leading group. Oncu crashed out with just 10 laps remaining in the race whilst he was running in fifth place, the Turkish rider remounted and re-joined the race. Foggia then crashed out of the race! Followed by two other riders crashing out; John McPhee and Daniel Holgado, McPhee went down, and Holgado had no where to go!
Suzuki was given a long lap penalty for irresponsible riding on lap 11. He took the penalty which put him back to seventh place.
Eight laps to go and Andrea Migno was now leading a front group of six, it was all change on the following lap as Guevara took the lead. Migno re-took the lead with six laps remaining, Moreria was in second place.
Suzuki made his way to the front of the pack of seven riders with just three laps remaining, it was short lived as Riccardo Rossi took the lead; Suzuki got pushed back to fifth and had a track limits warning!
On the final lap Guervara led the way, as the front three riders crossed the finish line, it looked to be a photo finish! Sergio Garcia got the win, his second victory in three races, Izan Guevara was second with Tatsuki Suzuki in third place, a first podium finish of the 2022 season for the Leopard Racing’s rider.
Sergio Garcia leads the championship standings on 112 points, Jaume Masia and Dennis Foggia are in joint second place on 95 points.
Featured Images: MotoGP.com.