When in the second corner of the first lap he avoided an almost certain fall, Iván Ortolá could be satisfied to stay at least on top of his bike. He was still in the race, he was twentieth and it seemed that his chances of getting his first World Cup podium were vanishing. “After the scare, I went blank because I knew I had the pace to be ahead but not that much,” he said later. The young Valencian driver, who is known in the paddock as ‘El pepino de Puçol’, put on his overalls and began a comeback that made him rejoin the race in just five laps.
He took advantage of the fact that in that first part of the race the driver train was still formed and gained many positions with the slipstream. He had to do it quickly because if there had been a cut at some point on the grid, his options would have been complicated since in a circuit with a straight line of more than a kilometer, those extra kilometers that the small Moto3 bikes give a boost They are fundamental. Ortolá did it perfectly and in the blink of an eye he was already hooked on the noble zone of the classification.
They had left Sasaki to carry the weight of the race and the Japanese separated the wheat from the chaff, leaving the group reduced to just six riders: in addition to Sasaki himself and Ortolá, three other Spaniards, Jaume Masiá, Dani Holgado and Xavi Artigas, and Brazilian Diogo Moreira.
The tense calm lasted until the last four laps, when pole sitter Masiá began to worry Sasaki, but he refused to give up the lead. He put in so much effort that he ended up on the ground and when he fell he was about to also throw Masiá, who, although he saved him, lost contact with the front quartet. To another that it was his turn to put on the work overalls.
Ortolá assumed the leadership, but without Sasaki the front group was left without a sheriff and hostilities broke out, which Masiá took advantage of to re-enlist and present his candidacy for victory. However, the day was predestined for a driver who, until this Grand Prix, did not know what it was like to get on the podium and who ended up celebrating his first World Cup victory. Ortolá led a new Spanish triplet in Moto3, accompanied by Masiá and Artigas. With the final fifth position, Holgado remains at the head of the classification in the small category.
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