Daniel Holgado is the big winner of the Moto3 Portuguese GP! The end of the race was intense, with José António Rueda trying until the last to regain the lead he held for most of the race, but in the end he couldn’t beat Holgado, who went on to take the win.
José António Rueda, Joel Kelso and David Alonso were the riders starting on the front row in Portimão, but in a class where the competition and proximity, accompanied by great uncertainty, made it practically impossible to predict who might be the favourite for victory.
Rueda, however, had the best start and made the most of pole position, with Daniel Holgado, Alonso, Kelso and Ivan Ortolá as his closest pursuers.
Meanwhile, Ryusei Yamanaka and Angel Piqueras got off to a bad start in Europe, with both crashing at turn 9 on the Algarve circuit.
At the end of the first two laps Rueda was still in front with 0.214s over Holgado, Kelso was second and the fastest rider on the track at the time, Joel Esteban had moved up to fourth.
With the first quarter of the GP over, Rueda was still the leader but he couldn’t get away from the competition, with the latter keeping him around 0.2s behind, now with Alonso as his most direct opponent after beating Holgado. The CFMoto Gaviota Aspar Team rider was, in fact, currently the fastest on the track with a lap of 1:46.985s, the only one so far to lap in second 46.
Holgado was back in second place and Ortolá was third, with Alonso now fourth. Collin Veijer was 0.454s behind, with Kelso 0.088s behind the #95.
Ortolá didn’t stop there, however, and went back on the attack in the first sector of the tenth lap to take second place, but… only for a short time: Alonso, in the next sector, overtook his rivals and in the space of two sectors went from third to first. Rueda lost the lead for the first time in the Portuguese GP.
NEW LEADER 🔄
— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) March 24, 2024
David Alonso takes the lead for the first time in this race 👊
But anyone from P1 to P6 has got a shot at it ⚔️#PortugueseGP 🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/7dbpR7EmAu
With eight laps to go, this was the top ten:
The race was fast approaching the decisive laps and Alonso increasingly saw his place in jeopardy, even though he led by 0.179s over Holgado.
And so it was: on the finishing straight Alonso was overtaken by Holgado and Rueda, dropping to third.
Ricardo Rossi was next… not to finish the race. The Italian crashed at turn five of the Portuguese circuit.
Three laps to go and any mistake now, no matter how small, could be decisive. Ortolá wanted to be part of the party and climbed up to third place.
Going into the final lap, only 0.066s separated Holgado from Rueda. Ortolá, third, was 0.578s behind. Alonso was fourth and Veijer fifth.
The race would end shortly afterwards, but with plenty of excitement! Rueda almost got ahead near the last straight of the circuit, but Holgado successfully defended himself and took the win by 0.044s. Ortolá took the final place on the podium.