Moto3 Qatar Race Results: Andrea Migno wins first race in five years

Andrea Migno wins the first race of the Moto3 season after fighting Garcia.

The first Moto3 victory of 2022 comes down to Italian Andrea Migno who has taken his first Moto3 victory since 2017 at Mugello, it was a ferocious battle for the win with Sergio Garcia, Kaito Toba and Deniz Oncu getting involved in the action.

The race began with Dennis Foggia, Tatsuki Suzuki and Izan Guevara starting from the back of the grid with long lap penalties for all and a double for Foggia, this instantly shook up the podium with all three riders expected to be finishers eventually not finishing on the podium with Suzuki crashing out of the race taking out Fellon with him.

This wouldn’t be the only drama as Sergio Garcia came together with Carlos Tatay on lap one, Tatay crashing out of the race and Garcia being handed a long lap penalty which he took with ease, very quickly catching up to the group and battling it out for the victory.

As the laps unfolded poleman Ayumu Sasaki looked to be a clear victor as he opened up the gap at the front lap by lap with his gap opening up to nearly four seconds, his race would go from the best of his career to one of the worst after a very near-crash caused his fairing to come undone, from here he would lose time at an incredible rate, eventually being reeled in by the chasing group and retiring from the race completely, he had his first win in his hands and it ended with a zero.

This opened up the chance for victory with the chasing group consisting of Toba, Migno, Oncu, McPhee, Garcia and Masia, it wasn’t to be for 2021 winner Masia though as he tumbled out of the race throwing his hopes of repeating victory down the road with him, dropping the battle for the win down to just five riders.

Kaito Toba looked to be a strong favourite but his straight-line speed meant that lap on lap he would get swallowed up by the competition and had to work hard on corner exits to try and stay with the front group, despite this he continued to push his way through lap on lap eventually finishing the race in third place.

Further back in the order Dennis Foggia was making a heroic charge through the field after his double long lap penalty and back of the grid start, he was unable to battle for the victory today but showed he’s got supreme pace compared to the rest of the field finishing the race in P7.

In the final few laps it was a nailbiting battle between the front five riders with this eventually dropping to four with McPhee unable to retain the pace of the front four, from here it would be Migno’s to lose, the Italian looked consistently strong at the front of the race holding off the advances of Garcia with Oncu and Toba going at it for the final podium spot. The race finished with Migno taking the win by only 0.037 seconds to Garcia following an audacious move from the Spaniard on the last corner who was unable to draft the Honda of Migno.

Oncu also did exactly the same to Toba on the final corner but also was unable to get the job done and take victory, however a strong P4 is a good way to start the year with McPhee in fifth place.

The rookies had a great day with Diogo Moreira in P6 and Ivan Ortola showing some serious speed in P11, between them we saw Izan Guevara come from the back of the grid to P8 with Ryusei Yamanaka and Xavier Artigas rounding out the top 10.

Full results – 

Featured image – Dorna