Kunii aims for more points, Matsuyama makes GP debut
Le MansAndrea Migno (Rivacold Snipers Team Honda NSF250RW) travels to Le Mans this week as Honda’s top rider in the 2021 Moto3 World Championship. The 25-year-old Italian has scored one podium and two fourth places at the last three races to lift himself to third in the points standings.
Migno is enjoying his first season on an NSF250RW, taking forward steps at every race as he learns how to get more and more out of the bike. He goes well at Le Mans – three years ago he finished second at the French track, just 0.160 seconds behind the race winner.
Next rider on a Honda is Darryn Binder (Petronas Sprinta Racing Honda NSF250RW), who holds sixth overall after unlucky races in Portugal and Spain. Last time out at Jerez the 23-year-old South African was taken out by another rider at the last corner while in top-three contention. This Sunday Binder – who started 2021 with a second and a third in the opening races in Qatar – is determined to return to the podium.
Also anxious to get back to riding are 24-year-old Argentinian Gabriel Rodrigo (Indonesian Racing Gresini Moto3 Honda NSF250RW), who crashed out of the lead at Jerez, and 19-year-old Spaniard Jeremy Alcoba (Indonesian Racing Team Gresini Moto3 Honda NSF250RW), who took his first podium of 2021 at Jerez, where he took the chequered flag just half a second behind the race winner.
Yuki Kunii (Honda Team Asia Honda NSF250RW) aims to continue his strong upward progression this weekend. The 18-year-old from Setagaya is contesting his second World Championship season and is showing improved speed and confidence, with two points scoring rides from the last three races.
Kunii has made excellent progress adapting his working methods during race weekends and also working on himself, improving his focus and calmness at the moments of highest stress: during the all-important 15-minute qualifying sessions and the crucial first laps of the race.
Meanwhile team-mate Andi Farid Izdihar (Honda Team Asia Honda NSF250RW) continues his re-adaption to the Moto3 class after contesting last year’s Moto2 World Championship. The 23-year-old Indonesian is definitely making progress, finishing the last two races inside the top 20 for the first time. Over the next few events he will keep working on his riding technique to make even better use of his NSF250RW and get into the points.
This weekend Honda Team Asia Honda welcomes a new rider to its Moto3 line-up, with impressive teenager Takuma Matsuyama contesting the French GP as a wildcard rider, wearing Asia Talent Team livery.
Matsuyama’s progress into this event underlines the importance of the various Honda-backed initiatives – the Asia Talent Cup, the Asia Talent Team and the Honda Team Asia GP squad – to help Asian riders make it to the top of the sport.
The 16-year-old from Chiba is currently riding the crest of the wave and arrives at Le Mans fresh from his first Moto3 Junior World Championship podium at Valencia last weekend. In 2019 Matsuyama was runner-up in the Asia Talent Cup and last year contested the Moto3 Junior World Championship for the first time.
I am very excited to arrive at Le Mans for this new race weekend. I trained a lot during the break after Jerez and I can't wait to tackle the corners of the Le Mans circuit. With Team Snipers we gained a lot of information in the last GP so we will work hard on the bike.
I’m really looking forward to Le Mans after a couple of weekends that promised so much but delivered so little in terms of results. The last race wasn’t easy because I wasn’t feeling too comfortable after my crash on Saturday, but we were at the front, showing that we can be strong even on right days, until I got wiped out by another rider. The weather doesn’t look great for this weekend but that doesn’t change anything for us – the aim as always is a podium finish.
We’re eager to make amends after Jerez. We probably had the best race pace and we didn’t capitalise. We will try at Le Mans – a track I like – to keep doing a good job like we did in Spain two weeks ago, as we aim to bounce back. I took a big hit to my foot, so I rested after Jerez and I’m ready to go.
Checking the weather forecast it looks like we will have some rain on every day of the weekend raining, so I will try to do my best even in rain conditions. Last year I had quite a good feeling in the rain at Le Mans, so I know the track in these conditions and also in the dry. Once again at Jerez we improved, so we will try to keep going like this. Even if the conditions will be difficult this weekend we must keep our focus and keep improving. Although we did okay at Jerez we dd make some mistakes, so we will learn from that and do better at Le Mans.
I’m so excited to go to Le Mans again. I hope the weather will be good for the weekend, even though the forecast doesn’t look so good. Like always we will continue improving, like we did at Portimao and Jerez. I feel like every race we are coming better, so this weekend I think I have a realistic target of scoring some championship points. We will work hard from first practice.
This is my first race in the World Championships. I am very happy to be racing in Moto3 this weekend, which will be my first race at Le Mans circuit. My target is to get some points. See you there!