San Marino Moto3: Back-to-back wins for Foggia as Fenati falls

Dennis Foggia took victory for the second race in a row, the first back-to-back wins of his career, after crossing the line first in the Moto3 San Marino Grand Prix, round fourteen of the championship.

The Leopard rider was able to celebrate his win with the Italian fans, but did not have victory guaranteed from the start.

Polesitter Romano Fenati, also topped warm-up ahead of the race, looked at ease out front and was lapping metronomically out front. With the Husqvarna rider’s lead almost at three seconds he slid off at turn 15, right at the end of lap fourteen.

Devistation for Fenati became hope for Foggia, who immediately set about emulating his fellow countryman’s tactic, pulling out his own lead which stood at a fairly comfortable 0.565s at the line.

The number seven takes points out of Pedro Acosta for the fourth race in a row to move into second in the title hunt, level on points with Sergio Garcia and now just 42 points behind the leader.

Niccolo Antonelli, who returned early from injury to podium at Silverstone, had dropped to the back of the chasing group but kept his head to rally and come back for second for Avinta VR46 Academy on the KTM.

The all Italian podium was completed by Andrea Migno, who converted his fourth place start to the final podium place for Rivacold Snipers.

Garcia was also racing hard in the group for the final rostrum places, which evolved into a long scrap with Jaume Masia, with plenty of contact and position swapping between the pair. The GasGas rider won their battle on track, with Masia on the receiving end of a tough late move, forcing him to settle for fifth.

Darryn Binder was the last of the pack to cross the line in seventh for Petronas Sprinta Racing.

Acosta had been sat fairly comfortably in the chasing group, looking for valuable points after his DNF last weekend. A late charge from the championship leader saw him push ahead and cross the line seventh for Red Bull KTM Ajo.

The rookie was chased to the line by a group of four riders in hot pursuit. Carlos Tatay came closest to catching his fellow Spaniard in eighth for Avintia Esponsorama. Stefano Nepa (BOE Owlride) in ninth, Ayumu Sasaki (Red Bull KYM Tech 3) in tenth and Riccardo Rossi (BOE Owlride) in eleventh were all close behind.

Izan Guevara brought the second Aspar GasGas bike home in twelfth, just keeping John McPhee at bay as he attempted to make up places in the race after qualifying down in 19th on his return to Moto3.

The remaining points on offer went to Kaito Toba in 14th for CIP Green Power and Tatsuki Suzuki in 15th for SIC58 Squadra Corse after he too experienced a difficult qualifying session.

Gresini’s Jeremy Alcoba couldn’t bridge the gap and was next to see the chequered flag in sixteenth as he nurses burns to his hand after his glove acme off in his Aragon crash. 

Their other rider, Gabriel Rodrigo, was withdrawn earlier in the race weekend after further x-rays revealed he had sustained a fracture in his Aragon crash.

Matteo Bertelle Was the better of the two Bardahl VR46 Academy wildcard riders, finishing in 18th, the more experienced Elia Bartolini was the first to fall in the race.

Deniz Oncu (Red Bull KTM Tech 3), who along with all of yesterday’s fallers was declared fit to race after further checks in the morning, finished 21st after a long lap penalty. 

Xavier Artigas was also handed a long lap penalty and pulled into the pits late in the race. Filip Salac also entered the pits earlier in the race.

Yukii Kunii was disqualified from the race after riding slowly on the racing line caused Alberto Surra to crash in FP3.