MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

A sunny Catalunya served a slow-burner of a Moto2 race that ended in a masterclass from championship leader Manu Gonzalez, who steadily hunted down poleman Celestino Vietti to steal the win in the closing stages and extend his lead in the championship. Vietti had led the way for most of the 21 laps but had no response once the attack came from Gonzalez and the Italian settled for second. Having started 11th on the grid, Izan Guevara had an excellent recovery to claim the final podium position and limit the damage in the championship. 

Gonzalez already showed his intentions when he took the lead off the line, but Vietti was quick to sneak back through at the second corner and recover prime position ahead of Gonzalez, Ivan Ortola and Alonso Lopez. An aggressive start for Guevara put him up to 5th right away, ahead of Dani Holgado and David Alonso, who had also made excellent progress from 13th on the grid. Senna Agius picked up Aron Canet for 8th, with Filip Salac completing the top 10 on the opening lap. On the other hand, misfortune hit front row starter Collin Veijer, whose poor launch left him 16th and he eventually crashed out of the race, as well as third row starter Jose Antonio Rueda, who dropped from 9th to 19th.  

Vietti’s early speed helped him extend half a second of advantage at the front over the first handful of laps, keeping Gonzalez, Ortola and Guevara at bay, while Holgado made some early progress up to 5th. The only real entertainment was coming from the battle for 6th between Agius and Alonso, however, that dropped the duo over a second and a half behind the leading group, and also allowed Lopez and Salac to join the party. Over the next few laps Lopez became the bigger threat in that group, challenging Agius for 6th, while Alonso dropped behind Salac for a bit. 

By the halfway point of proceedings, Vietti was still maintaining a six-tenth advantage over Gonzalez and Ortola, while Guevara dropped his pace and was left two seconds behind the victory battle - the same gap keeping him ahead of a similarly lonely Holgado in 5th. Agius still had the advantage in the battle for 6th, fending off Lopez, Salac and Alonso, while Luca Lunetta was having a solid race in 10th position. 

Things had gotten pretty quiet going into the final handful of laps, with the exception of a few sparks in the fight for 6th, but Gonzalez decided it was time to push for a victory bid and closed right in on Vietti. The two were separated by only a couple of tenths of a second with 4 laps left, while a fading Ortola was about to find some late trouble from Guevara in the dispute for the final podium position. 

Gonzalez made the first move in the run to the first corner with 3 laps remaining, the Spaniard taking the lead with no immediate response from Vietti, while Guevara also snuck ahead of Ortola by turn 10.  If Guevara quickly shook off Ortola, Gonzalez had Vietti breathing down his neck until the final lap, although the Italian was having a bit of a wild ride and was running out of time and opportunities to respond. The reply never came and Gonzalez secured the win by two tenths of a second at the chequered flag, Vietti settling for second, with Guevara a distant third. Ortola faded to 4th, while Holgado’s mostly lonely ride to 5th got a little company in the closing stages, when teammate Alonso picked up the pace and caught up with him. After Agius was at the forefront of the battle for 6th for much of the action, he faded in the last few laps, allowing Salac and Lopez to take 7th and 8th, before losing 9th to Lunetta at the final corner. 

Gonzalez’s masterclass helped him extend his advantage in the world championship standings to 18.5 points over Guevara, while Vietti climbed into 3rd, 31.5 points behind the leader and 8 ahead of Agius. 

Results: 

Saturday afternoon in Catalunya confirmed once again that Celestino Vietti is one of the men of the moment in the intermediate class, the Italian starting and ending Q2 at the top of the timesheets despite some brief interference from Collin Veijer. The Dutchman was keen to limit the damage of his long lap penalty for a French GP mishap and briefly threatened pole, but Vietti closed the show with an all-time lap record that was a quarter of a second quicker than Veijer’s top time. Manu Gonzalez also made a bid for pole and although he saw his best time cancelled due to exceeding track limits, his second-best was still good enough for third on the grid. 

Ivan Ortola was another of Saturday’s headliners, climbing as high as 4th after escaping Q1, and sharing the second row with Alonso Lopez and Aron Canet - in a season-best result for the latter. A late jump from Filip Salac promoted him to 7th, in the company of Dani Holgado and Jose Antonio Rueda on the third row. Holgado’s session was complicated by an early rodeo moment at turn 10, which prompted an unplanned pit stop to fit a new screen, but once he got going he climbed up to 8th. Meanwhile, rookie Rueda was one of the stars of Q1 and progressed into an excellent 9th place on the grid. 

Luca Lunetta was the unexpected leader of Q1 and joined his fellow rookie in the top 10 positions, opening the fourth row ahead of Izan Guevara and Senna Agius, who were both left quite a distance away from their main title rival. David Alonso’s challenging weekend continues, the Colombian scraping through Q1 and finishing Q2 seven tenths of a second off pole, down in 13th. He will be sharing the fifth row of the grid with Ayumu Sasaki and Dani Muñoz, with Deniz Öncü, Alberto Ferrandez and Alex Escrig on row six - the latter two ending their session tangled in the gravel, after Escrig lost control and took Ferrandez with him. 

Results: 

Although track conditions were not all that ideal in a rather chilly Catalunya, the intermediate class were pretty quick to challenge the all-time lap record halfway through FP2, when Alonso Lopez took over the timing screens. However, it was Manu Gonzalez who eventually wrote his name under that record, the Spaniard picking up the pace in the final five minutes to go a tenth quicker and stayed in top spot until the chequered flag. Lopez settled for second, with early session leader Dani Holgado in third. Senna Agius also made a late jump into 4th, with Filip Salac completing the top five - six tenths of a second off the lead.

Alex Escrig, Jose Antonio Rueda and Izan Guevara were the final riders to post lap times within a second of the leader, while Deniz Öncü and Joe Roberts rounded out the top 10 positions. David Alonso started getting back up to speed after a troublesome Friday and made his way up to 11th place, 1.1 seconds off top spot and in the company of Collin Veijer, Zonta van den Goorbergh, Dani Muñoz and Celestino Vietti in the rest of the top 15. 

Results:

Results:

Results:

A downpour predictably joined the party on Sunday morning at Le Mans and prompted a wet race protocol, although the track had mostly dried by the time the intermediate class buckled down for a shortened 14-lap race. That soon turned into a dry 9-lap sprint, after a red flag was needed to help clear a crashed bike from the start-finish straight - but despite all these challenges thrown his way, Izan Guevara easily converted pole position into a first victory of the season. Although the Spaniard looked pretty untouchable throughout the weekend, the consistency shown by compatriot Manu Gonzalez also served him well as he kept close in second place. The surprise appearance on the final step of the podium was Ivan Ortola - mainly because of his great start from 14th on the grid, mixed with some nice overtakes and a stroke of luck that allowed him to take advantage of rivals’ mistakes and skirmishes. 

Guevara had made an excellent initial start from pole position, with Gonzalez also getting some early airtime after a great launch took him from 5th on the grid up to second by turn 4. On the other hand, front row starter Dani Holgado had a dreadful opening lap, losing further positions to Filip Salac and Barry Baltus, before getting thrown off his machine on the exit of turn 7. While Guevara continued to lead, he couldn’t shake off the pursuit just yet and Salac became his main challenger on lap 2, but before he could progress any further, the red flag halted proceedings to help marshals safely remove the stricken machine of Jorge Navarro from the start-finish straight. 

A new dry 9-lap race was soon restarted from original grid positions, with Holgado and his team doing a fantastic job to get him back on the grid in time. It was a very similar story at the start, with Guevara ahead and Holgado initially holding onto second but soon coming under attack from Gonzalez - this time with the addition of Alonso Lopez who promptly secured second. Ortola and Celestino Vietti were also quick to join the top 5, while early shenanigans between teammates Holgado and David Alonso favoured Alonso for 6th and cost Holgado dearly, dropping him down to 10th. Joe Roberts, Sergio Garcia and Senna Agius were also inside the top 10, with some notable absences in Salac, who dropped down the field after getting out of shape at the first corner, and Baltus, who crashed out on the opening lap - in an incident that soon cost Vietti a long lap penalty. 

Back at the front, Gonzalez reclaimed second at the start of lap 3, although the gap to Guevara had inflated to a second and a half in those opening laps. Ortola was also quick to challenge Lopez in the early fight for third, while Alonso fought to close the one-second gap to the podium battle, bringing Roberts with him. Agius had dropped a further two seconds behind by lap 5, but his attempts to bridge that gap were hampered somewhat by a keen Vietti and a quickly-recovering Salac right behind him. Holgado completed the top 10 - over eight seconds off the lead and with a sizeable group for company. 

Although Gonzalez soon closed to just under a second of Guevara’s lead, the championship leader was left with only two laps to shrink that gap and further progress was limited. Guevara managed to maintain the pace until the final lap and took the chequered flag half a second ahead of Gonzalez. Ortola cruised home in an excellent but rather lonely third place, with a similarly tame but productive end to Lopez and Alonso’s races in the other top 5 positions. Behind the Spanish brigade, both Vietti and Agius demoted Roberts on the final lap, dropping him to 8th, while Salac and Aron Canet completed the top 10. 

Gonzalez’s consistency keeps him in the lead of the world championship by 9.5 points but this time Guevara is his main challenger, while Agius drops to third, 20.5 behind. Vietti in 4th is a further 6 points back, with Alonso jumping ahead of Holgado in 5th - 31.5 off top spot.

UPDATE: Holgado has been disqualified after the race for competing without a front fender fitted to the motorcycle. This also drops him to 7th in the championship standings, 41.5 points behind the leader. 

Results: 

Qualifying confirmed what the rest of the weekend strongly hinted at, which is that Izan Guevara is the fastest Moto2 rider around the Bugatti Circuit. Although his advantage in Q2 might not look that big on paper, the Spaniard’s early benchmark seemed to have no match and he finally secured a maiden pole position in the intermediate class and an all-time lap record on top of that. Dani Holgado came closest to challenging him but could not improve on his final run and settled for second by eight hundredths of a second. Filip Salac did pick up the pace significantly on his final flying lap and it promoted him from 8th up to 3rd, for a long-awaited return to the front row of the grid. 

Barry Baltus was another of the main contenders for pole but a fast crash at turn 6 ended his session with two minutes left on the clock and prompted a check at the medical centre - although it didn’t prove too costly on the timesheets, only dropping one position to 4th. Manu Gonzalez was a somewhat concerning 16th when the chequered flag started waving but an excellent last lap helped him climb up to 5th, alongside Q1 graduate Joe Roberts on the second row. David Alonso also impressed by coming through Q1 and securing a solid 7th place on the grid despite a shoulder injury picked up in training - the Colombian joined by Alonso Lopez and Celestino Vietti on the third row. 

Collin Veijer could not replicate his last qualifying outing and had to settle for 10th, in the unlikely company of Senna Agius on the fourth row - the Australian failing to improve his time in the final shootout and getting shuffled down to 11th position. Sergio Garcia complex row four, while Q1 leader Dani Muñoz qualified 13th but will be starting 16th due to a grid penalty, promoting Ayumu Sasaki, Ivan Ortola and Tony Arbolino to the fifth row.

Results: 

A bright but slightly chilly Le Mans welcomed the intermediate class for their final practice session and it gave Izan Guevara another chance to shine. The Spaniard had already led the way on Friday and then improved the all-time lap record in the final minute of FP2, going a third of a second quicker than Barry Baltus. The Belgian rider had headlined the timing screens for much of the session until getting demoted to second in the closing stages, with Filip Salac and Manu Gonzalez as the only other riders posting a lap time within half a second of the leader. 

Celestino Vietti made a late bid for 5th, with Dani Holgado and Joe Roberts close behind him - demoting Senna Agius to 8th. Collin Veijer and Dani Muñoz completed the top 10 positions, while Alonso Lopez regrouped after an early tumble to secure 11th, ahead of Ivan Ortola and Aron Canet. Alberto Ferrandez and Sergio Garcia completed a top 15 covered by nine tenths of a second. Meanwhile, David Alonso limited his running to only six laps after picking up a shoulder injury in training, leaving him last on the timesheets. 

Results:

Results:

Results: