Dalla Porta Grabs Dramatic First Win at Misano

Lorenzo Dalla Porta took a surprising first victory at Misano following a San Marino Grand Prix which saw another dramatic swing in the fight for the title. Marco Bezzecchi had looked set to extend his championship lead until he crashed out of a winning position, opening the door for Jorge Martin to overhaul him with second place.

The shape of the race had already been dictated by an enormous pile-up at the end of the second lap with Jaume Masia crashing on the exit of the final corner. The Spaniard’s high-side caused mayhem behind with Aron Canet, Enea Bastianini, Ayumu Sasaki and Nicolo Bulega all powerless to avoid the stricken motorcycle, before colliding with each other. Fortunately, all riders avoided serious injury.

The chaos created a large split in the main field with five riders finding themselves the right side of it, leaving them alone in the leading group. Bezzecchi led it from Dalla Porta, the two Gresini Hondas of Martin and Fabio Di Giannantonio and Gabriel Rodrigo’s KTM, but a critical error at turn 15 on the penultimate lap saw 25 valuable points disappear for the pre-race championship leader.

Martin was lucky himself to stay upright having taken avoiding action to dodge Bezzecchi’s KTM but the hesitation was enough to let Dalla Porta through. The Leopard rider, who had enjoyed long spells at the front earlier in proceedings, was able to hang on from there to take a well-deserved victory with Martin and Di Giannantonio joining him on the podium.

Jakub Kornfeil won the battle among the chase group to finish fifth ahead of Albert Arenas while Dennis Foggia and Darryn Binder finished side-by-side in seventh and eighth respectively. Andrea Migno was ninth while Niccolo Antonelli completed the top ten for the SIC58 team.

Moto3 GP Octo di San Marino e Della Riviera di Rimini (Result)