125cc – Estoril – Pasini makes a mistake, Faubel wins again in a sprint, Espargaro great

Four victories, four "sprint" victories: Losail, Mugello, Brno and, now, Estoril. This is Hector Faubel's specialty, with four successes for an overall advantage of 290 thousandths over his closest pursuer. The Valencian once again showed his clarity and competitive intelligence at the end, managing to outwit Gabor Talmacsi, still the championship leader, but now with only 5 points ahead of his teammate, equipped with an Aprilia RSA literally from another planet to as regards the speed part. The internal duel within Jorge "Aspar" Martinez's team will ignite this championship finale of the eighth-litre championship, where new protagonists can be proposed with a view to 2008: Pol Espargaro, born in 1991, responds to the identikit, Dani Amatriain as manager, defined in Spain "the new Pedrosa", author of an anthology race in Estoril with the prize of the first podium (third on the finish line) of his career in the MotoGP. “Polito” preceded a convincing Simone Corsi and a rediscovered Joan Olive, partially saving the balance sheet for SSM Racing where Mattia Pasini threw away a race he had already won, slipping at the “Gancho” during the 10th lap. The rider from Rimini then finished in 8th position, abandoning the possibility of achieving four seasonal victories. The same balance sheet as Hector Faubel: four victories, four winning sprints. The “Petacchi” of motorbikes…

Race report

Traffic lights go out with Pasini taking the lead ahead of Espargaro, Corsi, Faubel, Pesek and Olive immediately attacking: valid start according to the opinion of the race commissioners. Pasini immediately tries to escape, behind Faubel he makes his way and takes second position ahead of Corsi and an attacking Olive, with Talmacsi delayed and forced to make a comeback from eighth position. The race is long and very heated, with the first three who made the selection gaining a 2" advantage over the group of pursuers, colorful despite it being a true Aprilia single-make series where Gabor Talmacsi stands out positively, the fastest on the track in these first passes of the Portuguese Grand Prix. There isn't much of a spectacle, the only voice out of the chorus in this respect is the good Simone Corsi, author of anthology's braking in an attempt to keep up with the pace and missile speed of Faubel and Pasini's Aprilia RSA in front of him.

The ninth lap, however, marks the beginning, to all intents and purposes, of a "new" race: Pasini extends his lead, Talmacsi catches up with the Corsi/Faubel pair, behind the Teutonic Ranseder and Cortese they find nothing better than to center themselves and thus finish the race early. away near the Atlantic Ocean. There is nothing better than a twist to revitalize the contest, and here, unfortunately, is our Mattia Pasini, who slipped at the "Gancho" (the "Corkscrew" according to some) when he had a 1" lead on the pursuers. The rider from Rimini will start again in 5th position, the race consequently reopens with the trio (in order) made up of Corsi, Faubel and Talmacsi fighting for the victory, worried 13″ behind Olive and Espargaro in full comeback.

Sergio Gadea offside (yet another breakdown of his RSA: for the record he has suffered more problems than Pasini this season), Estoril is about to offer us an unexpected and unpredictable epilogue: the trio on the run studies each other and this allows the young Iberian players Espargaro/Olive to come together, forming a good five Aprilia branded motorcycles for success. It's a continuous succession of overtaking (without logic) that leads to an unforeseeable classification 7 laps from the checkered flag: Espargaro leader ahead of Corsi and Olive, behind the Talmacsi/Faubel couple fighting for the championship. Who would have thought?

No one, so much so that we are only waiting for the epilogue to confirm the ranking of the Portuguese Grand Prix: with two laps to go Corsi comes decisively on Espargaro, taking him out of the fight at the top, now a head-to-head Faubel Vs Talmacsi. The Hungarian takes first place at Gancho, but once again Hector Faubel wins in a sprint by 132 thousandths and gains points in the championship: the two are now separated by 5 points. Third (applause) Pol “Polito” Espargaro, first podium ahead of Corsi, Olive, Bradl (applause-2), Koyama and Mattia Pasini, eighth with a last-ditch overtaking on Raffaele De Rosa. Appointment in Motegi.

The "hot" declarations of the protagonists

Hector Faubel, 1th: “After Misano I knew I had to do a careful race. I had to stay away from Talmacsi so as not to have problems. At the end I managed to overtake him with the slipstream. It's a very important victory.”

Gabor Talmacsi, 2th: “During the race I tried to get out of the slipstream and I saw that I couldn't pass on the straight. So in the end I tried to take the lead but the new Aprilia is going strong and so it passed me. However, I'm happy, Faubel is someone who uses his head and it will be a good fight.”

Espargaro Pol, 3th: “Here (in the world championship) there are people who are very strong, Talmacsi, Faubel and others. I couldn't do anything when they passed me but it was a good race, I'm very happy.”

Alessio Piana