In the Sprint of the Australian GP, Fabio Di Giannantonio is third and secures his second consecutive podium on Saturday after a great comeback. Franco Morbidelli recovers too and he is fourteenth.
The weather was the main point of Saturday at Phillip Island in MotoGP, with the rain affecting the Qualifying of the Australian GP before letting the way to dry conditions in the Sprint. The Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team was ready in every situation with Fabio Di Giannantonio, who ended the Sprint in third place, clinching his second consecutive podium on Saturday. Franco Morbidelli bounced back and crossed the finish line in fourteenth place.
After securing the eighth place (1’36”506) in a challenging qualifying due to the rain, Di Giannantonio had a good start from the third row in the Sprint. However, in the opening stages he lost a position because of the wind and at the second lap he started his comeback. Fabio showed a great rhythm and recovered some ground lap by lap, at halfway of the race he was in the Sprint podium fight. The rider from Rome arrived at the third place defending the position until the chequered flag. He clinched his second consecutive Sprint podium, his thirteenth podium overall on Saturday. Di Giannantonio is now sixth in the World Standing with 252 points.
Morbidelli had a complicated Saturday, as he ended a tricky wet qualifying in twentieth place (1’37”904). A good start from the seventh row allowed Franco to recover one position right away, starting his comeback. The Italian-Brazilian rider showed a great firmness by gaining places throughout the 13-laps Sprint until he arrived at the fourteenth place. He kept this position from lap 9 to the chequered flag, recovering six positions overall. Morbidelli is sixteenth in the World Standing with 59 points.
The Australian GP will conclude tomorrow with the main race, which will start at 2:00 p.m. (local time, +11 UTC).
FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
“I am happy because from this morning in Qualifying the feeling was amazing on wet. In the Sprint I had a good start, but I made a mistake at Turn 4 and I got stuck because I made a wrong evaluation of the wind, I was thinking it was going on another direction, but it pushed me in the braking and I went wide. But then I realized I had a good pace and I started to overtake, I had fun. It’s a pity that we missed something to do even better, but we showed a good speed during the race. At the final stages we were very close to the second place, but I had stressed the tyre too much and it was hard to overtake, so I preferred keeping my position; we are on the Sprint podium anyway. I am happy because it was important to have a great result on this track for me. For tomorrow, we have a good potential, and the goal will be to perform very well. If it rains, it will be more challenging, but we were good on wet this morning and tomorrow we can have a good race, I am confident.”
FRANCO MORBIDELLI
“Today it was a very tough day: yesterday I struggled and today went a little worse than yesterday. We hoped for something more in the rain, but unfortunately I couldn’t be as fast as I wished in wet conditions. I am sorry, because I’ve always performed well in the rain, and this year I secured the Sprint podium on wet track. But today it was tough, especially on a very peculiar track such as Phillip Island, which requires a lot of confidence. We will keep working today and tonight to try to make a step forward tomorrow.”
