Moto3 Algarve Race: Pedro Acosta wins to be crowned champion

Pedro Acosta has been crowned the Moto3 World Champion after a dramatic 21 lap thriller.

After an aggressive, thrilling and dramatic race Pedro Acosta has been crowned the Moto3 World Champion, this follows an unbelievable record-breaking season which has seen Acosta become the second youngest ever 125cc/Moto3 World Champion and the first rookie champion since Loris Capirossi in 1990. The race sadly ended in tears for Dennis Foggia who was hit by a Petronas liveried torpedo riding under the name of Darryn Binder, Binder was subsequently disqualified from the race.

The race began with Acosta starting from P14 on the grid and Foggia in P4, this gave Acosta a lot of work to do in the opening laps getting through the Moto3 field as all the riders jostle for position and try and gain as many points as possible in the opening laps when it is the easiest to do so, by the end of the first lap Dennis Foggia had arrived at the front with the race lead, Acosta only a few places back in P6 getting the hard work done and allowing him to set his focus on the championship.

Acosta continued to chip away at the places battling with Darryn Binder and Xavier Artigas sat in fourth place after disposing of Adrian Fernandez and Sergio Garcia, he knew he needed to get past the two Honda’s if he wanted to attack Foggia for the victory, the Italian slowly but surely disappearing at the front opening up a lead of 0.6 seconds with his defensive teammate sat directly behind in second place.

Slowly but surely Acosta would make his way through to second place, showing immense speed and determination, he wanted this title more than anyone and was going to stop at nothing to achieve this, he had the unmistakable Leopard machine in his sights and was slowly but surely catching Foggia, this however was “all part of the plan” as ‘The Joker’ once said, Foggia was purposely slowing down and slowing the pace of the field, allowing the eight-man band behind the race leaders to catch up 0.5 seconds over a lap and join the fight. The Leopard man knowing full well he had the pace to pull away but if he wanted to win the title he had to feed Pedro to the dogs and stop him from attacking for the win, this is exactly what happened, Pedro went for the win going slightly wide and instantly being overtaken by Foggia dropping back into the pack behind.

This move of slowing the field up allowed Acosta’s teammate Jaume Masia to join the battle, his job from the team was to beat Foggia and ensure Acosta won the title, this was what we thought would happen when he was sat in third place behind Acosta, he had the speed to overtake his teammate and instantly divebombed his way through on Foggia to allow Pedro though to lead the race in a Red Bull KTM 1-2. Masia however had other ideas, he didn’t want to play happy families with his teammate and instead of sitting behind him and defending anyone who dared to attack Acosta he instead played friendly fire and made a rough move on Acosta, the move would push the title contender down the field behind a multitude of riders in sixth place, Foggia retaking the lead.

It was time to remount and do it again, Acosta was playing rough riding fairly but aggressively once again arriving in P2 ahead of Binder and behind Foggia with five laps to go, from here things would slowly start to fall into place for Acosta with chaos going on behind him, Masia would suffer a crash pushing Binder out wide stopping any further advances from the South African for the time being allowing Acosta to take the lead of the race with a handful of laps to go.

The race would sadly end in tears for many, with two laps left Foggia took the race lead coming over the line in P1 on the final lap, Acosta had to strike and he had to strike as soon as possible, making his move into turn three forcing Dennis Foggia wide. From here we would see Darryn Binder clatter into Foggia after a pretty late move on Sergio Garcia, the move saw all three riders crash out of the race and hand Acosta the win and the championship, of course Acosta had absolutely no idea about this and had Andrea Migno hot on his tail, something Acosta mistook for Foggia for obvious reasons. The 17-year-old rode on the complete limit for the entire final lap defending the lead before coming home as the 2021 Moto3 World Champion, doing so as a rookie and fulfilling his promise he made in March after saying he felt he could win the title after some strong pre-season tests.

Joining Acosta on the podium were Andrea Migno and Niccolo Antonelli who took full advantage of the accident to claim rostrum finishes, finishing just outside the podium were Jeremy Alcoba and Izan Guevara, both riders running with some extreme pace in the second half of the race making up some huge positions.

Full results – 

Featured image – KTM Media / Polarity Photo