Moto3 mid-season: Cortese and Viñales fight for the 2012 title
The Moto3 World Championship is extremely exciting, with two riders ahead of the rest and many options to win the category title: Viñales and Cortese, although Rossi, Fenati and Salom continue to cause trouble at every race.
The Motorcycle World Championship round at the Laguna Seca Circuit is always somewhat the midpoint of the season for the three categories of the world championship, since after the race in which only the MotoGP category takes part there are a few weeks of break until the next round of the season.
Specifically the next stop of the World Championship will be in Indy on 19 August, so the riders of the premier class have a few days off, and the Moto2 and Moto3 riders have a few more weeks. Therefore, we need to take a brief look back and see how each category of the championship is doing; specifically, let’s start with Moto3.
The Moto3 category has reached mid-season with two riders as the strongest, Sandro Cortese and Maverick Viñales. Between the two of them they have shared most of the victories and dominate the overall standings, although with some surprises such as Romano Fenati’s at the Jerez Circuit in a very crazy race due to the track conditions; and also at Le Mans with Louis Rossi, in another race affected by rain. The rest of the races have gone to Cortese and Viñales, so they are the two great dominators of the 2012 season so far.
Currently it is Cortese who leads the overall standings with 164 points, with Viñales 9 points behind (155 points) and with Luis Salom 60 points behind (104 points). Another protagonist this season is Luis Salom, who, despite not having won any race so far, is always in the leading positions, and on several occasions on the podium, which has allowed him to place himself in the top 3 and have chances for the Moto3 World title.
In Qatar the championship began with the victory of the favourite and his FTR Honda; at Jerez we had a surprise with Fenati, at the GP Estoril came Cortese’s moment with his KTM, in France another surprise with Rossi; and then the total control by these two riders arrived, with victories for Viñales in Catalunya, Silverstone, Assen and Mugello, while Cortese prevailed at Sachsenring.
There are still many races left in the 2012 season, but everything points to a battle until the end for the category title between Viñales and Cortese. Both are very strong and although the German is more consistent in results, our 25 is more of a winner, with 5 victories so far against the 2 that Cortese has.
Who will win? Any bets?
Photo | MotoGP official website
