Migno And Foggia Dominate COTA Front Row
Circuit Of The AmericasAndrea Migno (Rivacold Snipers Team Honda NSF250RW) won a thrilling battle for pole position with fellow Honda rider Dennis Foggia (Leopard Racing Honda NSF250RW) at the Circuit of the Americas today.
The 26-year-old and 21-year-old Italians swapped positions at the top during the final moments of this afternoon’s QP session, completing the outing separated by just 0.06 seconds. The pair have put Honda at the top of the battle for the 2022 Moto3 Constructors World Championship, with Migno winning the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix and Foggia dominating round two in Indonesia.
Both riders have great pace and yet they know that tomorrow’s race will be a tough contest, with COTA’s long back straight allowing riders to slipstream each other, which always helps to keep the lead pack closely bunched together.
Foggia currently stands second in the championship, only four points behind the leader, while Migno holds sixth overall, after crashing out of the last two races.
Rookie team-mates Taiyo Furusato (Honda Team Asia Honda NSF250RW) and Mario Suryo Aji (Honda Team Asia Honda NSF250RW) qualified 25th and 29th, learning plenty over the last two days. Aji’s hopes were compromised by a tumble during Q2, which left him unable to better his lap time.
After the Grand Prix of the Americas the Moto3 paddock heads back to Europe for a series of races that continues into September.
I’m happy about pole position because for tomorrow it’s important to start with the front group. Moto3 is nearly always a big group, so we will try to be at the front of the group from the start. I’ve felt good with the pace from my bike from the beginning of the week, which is the right base to make a good race. Dennis is the man to beat but also there are many other fast riders. If we can make a fast pace in the first laps, maybe we can have a smaller group.
Of course we were fighting for pole, but this position is great anyway, then after the chequered flag I ran out of fuel! The race will be very different and there will be many riders to race with. We know we have a fast bike and my team has done a great job, so now we have to focus to turn that into a good result.
I tried to follow some groups but I have never followed a group in qualifying, so I didn’t know how to do that. This made it super-difficult for me to make a good lap time. But also this is super-good experience, even though my grid position isn’t great. My race pace isn’t so fast, so my aim for the race will be to try and follow some faster riders and learn as much as a I can.
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What a shame to end the day like this, also because it means that we didn’t get any data from qualifying. Anyway, we will learn from this mistake for the next time, when we will make a better strategy to keep the tyres warm. I am super-disappointed but I hope we learned something today and we still have the chance to try something in warm-up and in the race.
