Izan sublime in Aragon; lights to flag win for Guevara in the Spanish sun

September 18, 2022

Moto3 – Gran Premio Animoca Brands de Aragon.

Qualification:

On form Izan Guevara took pole position, confirming he is the rider to beat for the championship, with his teammate Sergio Garcia struggling to keep up. Ayumu Sasaki was P2 and the youngster Daniel Holgado in P3.

The Race:

Lights out and Izan Guevara blasted off the line with intent, and even by the first corner had established a gap over Ayumu Sasaki in P2 and Daniel Holgado in P3. Sergio Garcia was P10, and already not seeming able to get away from the group around him. At turn one there was a crash involving Josh Whatley, Nicola Carraro and Lorenzo Fellon, and it was Fellon who was at fault on this occasion.

Six laps to go and the leading group was Izan Guevara, Ayumu Sasaki and Daniel Holgado, those positions as from the start line, and with a 7.8 second gap to P4 rider Oncu, it looked very much like the winner would come from this leading group. The real racing was further down with Deniz Oncu P4, Adrian Fernandez P5 and David Munoz P6, but it all got a bit nasty when Munoz pushed past Fernandez and hit him whilst doing so; it was irresponsible and unnecessary and Munoz was given a long lap penalty for his trouble, but that did not help Adrian who went to P14.

With two laps to go, Munoz finally took his long lap penalty. At the front was Izan Guevara running his own race at his pace, with Ayumu Sasaki in P2, and now pushing on towards Izan, with Daniel Holgado a little out of the running in P3. So the racing once again was from P4 with Oncu holding station and Ivan Ortola, Adrian Fernandez and Tatsuki Suzuki all fighting for the final positions.

As the race concluded it was Izan Guevara who took the win, with Ayumu Sasaki P2 and Daniel Holgado P3, the top three finishing as they started from the front row.

Although this was a dominant win for Guevara, Sasaki had kept him honest. However, the rider of the race was Adrian Fernandez, who finished P5 after being knocked out and down to P14 by David Munoz. Adrian had a tough weekend, after having been bullied in pit lane by some Max team mechanics (who received a hefty financial penalty from the organisers) he had to contend with another bully on the track in the form of Munoz, but showed a lot of mettle and finished well.