Ogura Still In Title Fight With His Home Grand Prix Next
MotorLand AragónAi Ogura (IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia Kalex) had a fantastic race at MotorLand Aragon today.
The up-and-coming Japanese star recovered brilliantly from a complicated Saturday to finish a very strong fourth, keeping him very much in the fight for the 2022 Moto2 World Championship as he goes into his home Grand Prix at Twin Ring Motegi next weekend.
The 21-year-old from Saitama recovered from a crash in FP3 and a third-row start to move forward with some superb moves around this very challenging circuit. Sixth after the first lap he worked super-hard to take fifth from front-row starter Jake Dixon (Shimoko GASGAS Aspar Team) and in the final stages he steadily closed on fourth-placed Tony Arbolino (Elf Marc VDS Racing Team Kalex).
During the last laps Ogura had a thrilling duel with the 22-year-old Italian, the pair passing each other on several occasions. On the final lap Ogura retook fourth place with a daring out-braking move at Turn 12. Arbolino then used Ogura’s draft to get level on the run down MotorLand’s long main straight and out-braked him into the final double right, but Arbolino carried too much speed into the corner, allowing Ogura to make a stunning undercut manoeuvre on the inside.
Ogura won 13 points for today’s efforts, which keeps him second in the title chase, seven points behind leader Augusto Fernandez (Red Bull KTM Ajo Kalex), who finished third this afternoon.
Team-mate Somkiat Chantra (IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia Kalex) also had an excellent Sunday. The 23-year-old Thai rider also started from the third row of the grid, in ninth, and was able to improve by two places during the 21-lap race. This result followed an eighth in the San Marino GP two weeks ago and his brilliant second place finish in last month’s Austrian GP, where he finished just behind Ogura.
The pair’s strong rides here keeps IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia second in the Moto2 World Championship.
Fernandez led the early stages of the race from pole position, but finally succumbed to the impressive pace of rookie team-mate and reigning Moto3 World Champion Pedro Acosta (Red Bull Ajo Kalex), who went on to take his second Moto2 victory, well ahead of Aron Canet (Flexbox HP40 Kalex), who also overcame Fernandez.
Ogura took fourth just ahead of Arbolino and Fermin Aldeguer (CAG Speed Up Boscoscuro). After Chantra the top ten was completed Jorge Navarro (Flexbox HP40 Kalex), Joe Roberts (Italtrans Racing Team Kalex) and Celestino Vietti (Mooney VR46 Racing Team Kalex).
Practice for next weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix gets underway on Friday afternoon. Sunday’s race is followed immediately by the following week’s Thai GP. The last three races of 2022 take place in Australia, Malaysia and Valencia, Spain.
I've been fighting all the race to finish fourth finally. This time I did my maximum and I'm happy about this. We made another step on Sunday. We started a bit further back, which cost us the chance to be more in front at the end of the race. I wanted to finish this round excellently. Now we are going to the Asian rounds; we're looking forward to finally going there because we've been many years not visiting those tracks.
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I'm happy about my race today. Finishing seventh was better than expected because this track is challenging for me. This year we improved a lot. I want to thank my team for their help and for providing me with a fantastic bike. Now we are going to the Asian rounds, see you there!
