Thursday 23 May 2013

A Spanish assault on Moto3™


Four races into the new campaign, an attack spearheaded by Maverick Viñales, Luis Salom and Alex Rins very much means the Moto3™ World Championship is being dominated by Spanish riders in 2013.

The evidence is clear to see. Spanish riders monopolise Moto3 at the moment. Viñales (Team Calvo), Salom (Red Bull KTM Ajo) and Rins (Estrella Galicia 0,0) are the only men to win races to date and, additionally, have shared 11 of the 12 podium positions between them at venues as diverse as Qatar, Texas, Jerez and Le Mans.
In France, Viñales celebrated a second straight victory and now leads the way with 90 points to his name. Salom (the first winner of the year under lights at Losail) and Rins (who broke his duck at Circuit of the Americas) are 13 and 29 points in arrears respectively, but the trio are certainly the three title contenders at this point.
Germany’s Jonas Folger (Mapfre Aspar Team Moto3) is the only non-Spanish rider to have set foot on the rostrum so far this year and still stands a chance, with 53 points to his name thanks to race finishing positions of one fifth, one third and a pair of fourths.
The Spanish supremacy is the talk of the season, though. It is true that both Salom and Viñales had a fair shot in 2012, finishing runner-up and third overall respectively, but both were beaten by Sandro Cortese as his compatriot Folger took up the challenge from Indianapolis onwards, having switched to the Aspar team mid-season.
With Cortese, Danny Kent and Louis Rossi - all Moto3™ front-runners last season - having now jumped up to Moto2™, those still in attendance such as Folger (three podiums in 2012, one of which was a victory), Romano Fenati (four podiums, with one win) and Zulfahmi Khairuddin (one podium) appear to have been eclipsed by the Spaniards.
We must now wait for the next encounter in order to survey whether the Iberian authority is set to continue yet further into the campaign. Mugello will inform us.

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