Foggia On Front Row For Home Grand Prix
Autodromo Internazionale del MugelloHonda’s number-one Moto3 World Championship challenger Dennis Foggia (Leopard Racing Honda NSF250RW) will start tomorrow’s Italian Grand Prix from the front row of the grid.
The 21-year-old from Rome ended this afternoon’s hectic 15-minute qualifying session third quickest, less than three tenths of a second off pole position. When tomorrow’s race starts at 11:00 he will do everything he can to repeat his brilliant 2021 Mugello victory, which kickstarted his impressive title challenge.
Foggia currently stands second in the 2022 title chase, 17 points behind the leader, and so far this year he has scored one win, in Indonesia, and two second places, in Argentina and the USA. He is still searching for his first podium of the year in Europe and aims to complete the race inside the top three to maintain his push for this year’s championship.
Honda’s next rider on the grid for the eighth of this year’s 20 races (cut from 21 following the recent cancellation of July’s Finnish Grand Prix) is another Italian, Riccardo Rossi (SIC58 Squadra Corse Honda NSF250RW), who will go from the middle of the third row.
The 20-year-old from Genoa was only sixth tenths off pole, with the Moto3 grid as tightly packed as usual.
Tatsuki Suzuki (Leopard Racing Honda NSF250RW) and Lorenzo Fellon (SIC58 Squadra Corse Honda NSF250RW) qualified 11th and 12th, putting them next to each other on the fourth row of the grid. Their best laps were both less than nine tenths of a second slower than pole.
Rookie Scott Ogden (VisionTrack Racing Team Honda NSF250RW) impressed once again, the 18-year-old Briton taking 14th place on the grid.
Rookie team-mates Taiyo Furusato (Honda Team Asia Honda NSF250RW) and Mario Suryo Aji (Honda Team Asia Honda NSF250RW) didn’t make it into Q2 and will take their places on the eighth row of the grid.
Furusato improved his laps times by a whole second from Friday, giving him real hope he can move further forward tomorrow and maybe fight for some World Championship points. Aji experimented with different riding techniques today, which didn’t give him the performance boost he had hoped for.
Following tomorrow’s racing at Mugello the Moto3 grid immediately heads west to Barcelona, for next weekend’s Catalan Grand Prix at the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit.
I'm pleased after today – we've been fast throughout the whole weekend and I feel good on the bike. The first row is always important, and I believe we can have a good race tomorrow.
Sincerely, I'm happy about how it is going this weekend. Today's lap time is one second faster than yesterday and the most important thing for me is my feeling with the bike, which is getting better daily. In some sectors, I improved a lot; in others I continued making some mistakes. I feel I will have options to gain many positions tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow it will rain, and I wouldn't say I favour wet races, even though I felt well in the rain at Portimao. We will see.
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A confusing day for me. I changed my riding from FP1 when I was especially fast. I tried to change how I entered corners but I confused myself. I tried to calm down and fix it for Q1. Even if my position wasn't good, I recovered my feeling and I'm optimistic about the race. It seems tomorrow it could rain. Honestly, it doesn't matter. If it rains, it could benefit me but I'm also ready for dry conditions. The important thing will be to be patient and to see the chequered flag.
