Pedro Acosta began the campaign with success and leadership

The top favorite for the Moto2 world title, according to the press and MotoGP riders, Pedro Acosta At the age of 18, he began his second Moto2 campaign at Portimao in style after a superb display that Aron CanetSecond, he gave it more shine by copying his pace until three laps from the end he finally pulled it out. The two Spaniards were joined on the podium Tony Arbolinothe Italian from Maresme with a good friend in Fabio Quartararo, who extracted oil on Sunday in a gray weekend.

The first Moto2 race of the year began with a notable loss of its current runner-up, the Japanese Ai Ogura that in the preseason he injured himself practicing motocross and had to undergo surgery on his left wrist and not only missed the test in Portimao but is still a doubt for Argentina. He is joined by the promising Izan Guevara, the Moto3 champion and this year’s rookie in Moto2, in his case due to a triangular ligament injury in his right wrist that added to the compartment syndrome and underwent surgery on Thursday and is expected in Austin. For Acosta and Canet, it’s an inevitable mission to score as many points as possible in his absence.

gg.didomi.doWhenConsent(!window.didomiBypass, ‘c:twitterwi-wUmBnnKy’, function () {
var x = document.createElement(‘script’);
x.setAttribute(“type”,”text/javascript”);
x.setAttribute(“src”, “//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js”);
x.setAttribute(“charset”, “utf-8”);
$(“.twitter-tweet”).closest( “span” ).append(x);
});

And in Ogura’s absence, Portimao’s forecasts indicated a Pedro Acosta against the world, the Murcian is not for nothing, in addition to being the outstanding leader of the preseason, he has already won two Moto3 races in Portimao and was proclaimed world champion here. And now that he has regained his number 37 after giving it to his partner and then the champion Augusto Fernández, who he had before in this category, wants to shine again in his second campaign in Moto2 where he also has to face the pressure of being a good candidate.

And starting from the front row, things are not so complicated for the one from Puerto de Mazarrón, although he shared a situation with the hungry. Aron Canetwhere Portimao owes the victory he was denied last year to finally bring out his record in the intermediate category, winning the initiative from his two colleagues in the front row, polesitter Salac and Acosta.

It’s the second turn Pedro Acosta took over from Canet and the two fastest men in Portimao tried to open up a gap, which they achieved in five laps, supported by the double long lap penalty that Vietti had drawn since Cheste’22, thus releasing Manu González , Arbolino, Arenas and the rest of the group. The Valencian is copying Acosta’s lap times, very fast since the start of the race, another impressive novelty for him in 2023 after his pending issue in 2022.

Arbolino tried to connect with the leading duo, but as soon as he dropped to 8 tenths, Acosta’s new change and he returned to 1″1 in the pursuit, even with five from the end the third box belonged to him if nothing wrong.

Canet scares the three from the end

The last four laps became a game of cat and mouse between the two Spaniards with fast laps, but a mini scare three from the end of Canet gave the Murcian wind who achieved 4 tenths of an advantage, the rubber The lead began to fall and Arón had to lean in the final turns wondering how long this championship would last in 21 races.

Regarding the rest of the Spaniards, Manu González was fifth, Albert Arenas eighth, Jeremy Alcoba tenth, Fermín Aldeguer 13th, 15th and first points for the rookie Sergio García Dols; 21º Marcos Ramírez and 23º Jordi Torres. Dropped five from the end of Alonso López, after being penalized a long lap for throwing Bendsneyder, and Borja López who received a double long lap for taking the lead at the start, and David Sanchis was gone.

Moto2 Race Classification