The rider of the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team is third in the Sprint of the Dutch GP and strengthens his Top3 in the World Standing, reducing also the gap to the leader. Franco Morbidelli crashes.

The Saturday of the Dutch GP rewards Fabio Di Giannantonio, who is back on the podium after securing the third place in the Sprint. The rider of the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team strengthens his third position in the World Standing, reducing even more the gap to the championship leader and crossing the finish line as best Ducati rider. Tough Sprint for Franco Morbidelli, who crashed with two laps to go.

With a good start from the second row – the first one without the front device after the rule modification – Di Giannantonio managed to get into the front positions fight. Fabio showed a good pace right from the first corners, and he could recover some places from his starting sixth place on the grid to the podium places. The rider from Rome crossed the finish line in third place, securing his fourth Sprint podium of the season. Di Giannantonio keeps reducing the gap in the World Standing, where he now sits third with 164 points, 22 far behind the leader.

Franco started from the fourth row and recovers places from the thirteenth positions of the grid. The Italian Brazilian rider managed to get into the Top10 fight from the very beginning, showing a good pace. Bad luck stopped Morbidelli’s progression, though: at Lap 11 he went back to seventeenth place, and he crashed at Turn 3 of the following lap. He ended his Sprint with two laps to go. Franco is fourteenth place in the World Standing with 43 points.

The Dutch GP will conclude tomorrow with the main race, scheduled to start at 14:00 (local time).

FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO
“I am really happy with this Sprint. We realized that the potential of our opponents is huge on this track, so a third place so close to them is a great achievement. During the race, I tried to be as much precise as possible, but in the last laps it was tough because I was stressing the tyre so much. So, I decided not to force too much with the risk of losing positions. For sure, we must push to reduce the gap even more, we have to remain focused. But we keep working at our maximum to bring the team and the bike as further as possible in tomorrow’s race.”

FRANCO MORBIDELLI
“I’ve been making many mistakes in these days. This morning in Qualifying, I got wrong because of the slipstreams, and I lost a lot of temperature on the tyres, so I couldn’t do the laptime I wanted. In the Sprint, I made a mistake at Turn 15, I went wide and, to recover some positions, I crashed at Turn 3. Unfortunately, we made some mistakes, and tomorrow we will try not to repeat them. But there are some positives, we are faster than usual, so the speed is there. The goal for tomorrow’s race is to stay focused and to avoid mistakes.”