Di Giannantonio (VR46) found a gap: “Lucky I didn’t crash”

A place on the front row after qualifying, followed by third place in Saturday’s sprint race: In the decisive sessions of the race weekend in Lombok, Fabio di Giannantonio was at least on a par with Ducati’s frontrunner Marc Marquez. That was until Sunday, however, as despite his prime starting position, the VR46 rider played no part in the battle for the podium places.

Platz 3 im Sprint blieb als schöne Mandalika-Erinnerung

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He lost two places right at the start and had to fend off attacks from the rivals behind him for the rest of the race. ‘Diggia’ made no secret of his disappointment afterwards: ‘I think we could have achieved a good result.’ “Could have”, because – unlike in the sprint the previous day – the Roman had no chance of challenging for the top places throughout the entire Sunday race. The 28-year-old had already expected before the race that he would struggle to finish in the top three: “We knew the Aprilias would be faster than us. That’s why our aim was simply to stay as close to them as possible.”

A mechanical fault scuppered that plan: “After 10 laps, our front tyre started to disintegrate. That led to nasty vibrations at the front. I was lucky not to crash and to be able to finish the race.” At that point, Di Giannantonio was running in sixth place. By the time the chequered flag fell, he had dropped a further two places; the former Moto3 World Championship runner-up was fighting with blunt weapons: “After crossing the line, we realised I had a hole in my front tyre.” There had been no sign of such problems beforehand, nor in any of the previous sessions at the Mandalika International Street Circuit: “There was no warning. I’d found my rhythm and knew the race was a long one. I wanted to set slightly faster lap times when, out of the blue, my front wheel locked up at Turn 10. From that moment on, the race was over for me.”

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Nevertheless, Fabio di Giannantonio drew a positive conclusion from the race weekend in Indonesia: “Apart from the tyre problem, we were strong. We should be proud of that, because I believe it was one of our best weekends this year. Our place on the front row of the grid on Saturday secured us a place on the podium.”

Fabio Di Giannantonio leaves Mandalika still in sixth place in the World Championship. Ahead of the next race weekend at Phillip Island, he is 9 points behind Ai Ogura on 237 points and has 19 more to his name than his team-mate Franco Morbidelli.

Willkommen zum Rennen in Mandalika

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Pedro Acosta

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Alex Márquez

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Marco Bezzecchi

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Marc Márquez

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Start des Rennens

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Jorge Martin

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Ai Ogura und Pedro Acosta

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Luca Marini

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Raúl Fernández

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Marco Bezzecchi

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Quartararo und Binder

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Ai Ogura und Marc Márquez

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Enea Bastianini

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Alex Márquez und Fabio Di Giannantonio

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Marc Márquez und Pedro Acosta

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Marco Bezzecchi gewinnt das Rennen

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Sieger Marco Bezzecchi

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Fernández, Bezzecchi, Martin

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Sieger Marco Bezzecchi

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Willkommen zum Rennen in Mandalika

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