Moto3 Austin FP1: Antonelli masters the rain

At the San Marino Grand Prix, Dennis Foggia won for the fifth time in his career in Grand Prix, after the Grand Prix of the Czech Republic last year, and those of Italy, Assen and Aragon this season. He is now the third Italian rider with five or more Moto3 victories with Romano Fenati (13) and Lorenzo Dalla Porta (5). Foggia's victory at the San Marino Grand Prix was the 43rd for Italy in Moto3, more than half of Spain which leads with 81 victories in the category. It was also Honda's 77th Moto3 victory since 2012, tying KTM as the two most successful manufacturers in the category.

Niccolo Antonelli finished second at the San Marino Grand Prix, becoming the 23rd Moto3 rider with 10 (or more) podiums in the class. This is Antonelli's third podium since the start of the season, one less than in 2015 which was his best season regarding podiums. Andrea Migno finished third equaling his best result of the season so far compared to Portugal, his only other podium finish. With Foggia, Antonelli and Migno, this is the sixth all-Italian Moto3 podium and the second this season after Silverstone.

Sergio Garcia finished fourth at Misano, which is the first time he has scored points since his victory at the Austrian Grand Prix. The leader of the championship, Peter Acosta, finished seventh at the San Marino Grand Prix. He has not been on the podium in the last four Moto3 races. But he is still leading the championship with 42 points ahead of Dennis Foggia et Sergio Garcia, which is the largest margin after the first 14 races of the Moto3 season since 2017, when Joan Mir led with 271 points ahead of Romano Fenati (191) after the Aragon Grand Prix.

The seven Moto3 races that took place at the Circuit of the Americas were won by six riders: Alex Rins (2013), Jack Miller (2014), Danny Kent (2015), Romano Fenati (2016 and 2017), Jorge Martin (2018) and Aron Canet (2019).

Three of them are competing today in the premier category: Rins, Miller and Martin. Fenati is therefore the only rider on the current Moto3 category grid to have won on the circuit, but Jaume Masia second in 2019 and Andrea Migno third in 2019 reached the podium on the circuit in the category.

What will this FP1 have in store for us, a meeting in Austin lost sight of in Moto3 since 2019? Before answering this question, here is the table which summarizes the facts known so far.

Moto3 ™	2019	2021
FP1	2'18.536 Romano Fenati	2'32.152 Niccolo Antonelli
FP2	2'16.679 Romano Fenati
FP3	Session canceled due to storm
Q1	2'33.777 Darryn Binder
Q2	2'31.346 Niccoló Antonelli
Warm up	2'18.262 Romano Fenati
Course	Canet, Masia, Migno
All time lap record	2'14.644 Arón Canet 2017

21° in the air and 23° on the unfortunately wet track are the conditions proposed to the pilots for the 40 minutes of exercise.

For its part, Peter Acosta had the joy of spending a moment with his idol who is also that of his father…

The first reference is signed by Sergio Garcia in 2'40.404 but after ten minutes, he was dethroned by Suzuki in 2'39.325. farmhouse then accelerates in 2'37.873. We are still 23 seconds from the record... We see that it is not simple...

Peter Acosta took the lead halfway through the session in 2'34.486. Salc, Garcia, Fenati and Masia close the first top 5. Lorenzo Fellon is last.

Salac takes control as the last quarter of an hour begins in 2'33.480. Fenati Migno et Acosta follow as Garcia.

farmhouse fall at turn 6 and Salac accelerates in 2'32.990. Alberto Surra caused a sensation with a second time... Which was even the first in 2'32.871 four minutes from the goal. Yamanaka fall at turn 9. Pedro Acosta makes a mistake at turn 14.

Under the checkered flag, it's the experienced Antonelli who agrees Salac et Surrah in 2'32.152. Tatay falls while trying to improve his lot. Garcia closes the top 5 after making a mistake at turn 9 at Suzuki et Fenati. Acosta is 11th while Garcia sseems to suffer from hip pain while lying on the side of the track. fellon is 20th.

Moto1 Americas Grand Prix FP3 results:

Classification credit: MotoGP.com