Moto3: Acosta goes back-to-back as title contenders falter

Round three of the 2021 Moto3 World Championship took place in Portimao, at the Autodromo Internacional do Algarve. Andrea Migno started from pole position, while Darryn Binder started from the pit lane; Jeremy Alcoba and Deniz Oncu both started from the pit lane with a five-second delay; and John McPhee started from pit lane with a 10-second delay. 

It was the polesitter, Migno, who made the holeshot into turn one, and the Italian held the lead until the end of the lap, when he was overcome by Xavi Artigas. The Spaniard was then able to fashion an advantage over the next lap, before the tow cancelled it on the main straight. Two laps later, after dropping out of the top three, Artigas was down, after contact with Gabriel Rodrigo. 

In his place, Artigas’ Leopard Honda teammate, Dennis Foggia, took the lead, and he stayed there for the majority of the race. It was a race reminiscent of the #7’s win in Brno last year, when he was able to be strong on the brakes to prevent his rivals from passing him into the corners, and fast enough on the straight to nullify the slipstream effect. Combined with that, Foggia made very few mistakes the whole race, and was only headed on two occasions. 

The first of those was on lap 18, when Migno came back to the front in the first corner. But Foggia was able to reclaim the advantage at turn 11. 

The Italian then led until the last lap, by which point it had come down to a fight between himself, Pedro Acosta and Jaume Masia. That three-way fight became a two-way duel when Masia folded the front tyre of his Red Bull KTM Ajo bike at turn five, leaving Foggia and Acosta to fight between themselves. 

Through turn nine it looked like Foggia might have had enough of an advantage to hold on for the win, but Acosta was monstrous on the brakes through turns 10 and 11, and that put him in position to have a lunge at turn 13.

It was a special move from Acosta, braking way past the normal limit to slide up the inside of Foggia, sideways-on and with the front completely compressed. Watching, there was the expectation that he would run wide, and allow Foggia to reclaim the lead on the cut back. Instead, though, Acosta held the line and the lead, and defended well into turn 14. 

Foggia’s only remaining opportunity would be to slipstream the rookie to the line, but ironically a mistake from Acosta, who nearly folded the front in the final corner, may have halted Foggia’s momentum onto the straight. Or maybe Foggia simply did not have enough room to pass the #37 before the line. Whatever the case, Foggia was unable to deny Acosta his second win in succession. 

Not only was Acosta’s win impressive as a standalone, having sat, like the Moto3 champions of the past, inside the top positions for almost the whole race, and having arrived in that position from the fourth row, but it was also impressive in the context of the championship. Acosta is a rookie, and yet he now has a championship lead of over a race win. Darryn Binder and Jaume Masia were the only riders within 15 points of Acosta after Doha, and Binder was the only rider other than Acosta to have been on the podium in both races in Qatar. But, thanks to Masia’s crash and Binder’s pit lane start, Acosta was able to extend his championship lead to 31 points over Masia, and 34 over Binder, who is now tied with Niccolo Antonelli on 34 points. It looks like it is going to take a special effort from one or more of Acosta’s rivals to stop him, even at this early stage. 

Standing alongside Acosta on the podium were Dennis Foggia and Andrea Migno, the Italian compatriots who took their respective first podiums of the season after complicated starts for the pair of them in Qatar. 

Just missing out on the rostrum was Ayumu Sasaki, who took fourth, ahead of Gabriel Rodrigo who completed the top five after serving a long lap penalty for causing the contact which took out Artigas early on.

Sixth place for Niccolo Antonelli was enough for the Italian to move up to fourth in the championship, while Romano Fenati took his best finish of the season with seventh, ahead of Sergio Garcia who nearly went down on the final lap, Jaume Masia who remounted on the final lap to finish ninth, and Ryusei Yamanaka who completed the top 10 after a difficult qualifying. 

Stefano Nepa was 11th, ahead pof Jason Dupasquier, Filip Salac, Jeremy Alcoba and Deniz Oncu – the latter two the only two pit lane starters to make it into the points.

Yuki Kunii just missed out on points in 16th, ahead of Carlos Tatay, Andi Izdihar, Riccardo Rossi and Darryn Binder who completed the top 20. 

Maximilian Kofler and Lorenzo Fellon crossed the line directly behind Binder, in 21st and 22nd respectively, and just over a second back was John McPhee who remains pointless after the opening three rounds. Izan Guevara was the only other classified finisher, in 24th, over a minute down after he was unfortunately caught up in a contact between Kaito Toba and Niccolo Antonelli. 

Toba went onto finish six laps down, while the aforementioned Artigas was joined on the sidelines by Tatsuki Suzuki and Adrian Fernandez, who both went down when Fernandez got in too hot into turn three and hit the back of Suzuki’s Honda.