Agius rues Qatar speed deficit despite solid pace

Senna fights back from grid penalty as Holgado streaks to victory and the Moto2 title battle takes a twist

Senna Agius had to do it the hard way under the Qatar lights after a grid penalty meant the Intact GP rider was forced to start from the third row. Agius immediately made up ground from 9th on the grid, picking up two spots on lap one, before being shuffled back again as the race went on, with Ortola, Salac and Vietti making their way by, the Aussie suffering familiar top speed issues down Qatar’s long straight. From there Agius clawing his way back past Vietti and eventually hauled in Moto2 rookie Rueda to take seventh at the chequered flag, right behind teammate Manuel Gonzalez.

For the main title protagonists, the start of the race was anything but calm. Gonzalez nailed the launch from the middle of the second row to jump straight into P3, but the first corner immediately brought drama when Collin Veijer (Red Bull KTM Ajo) tagged Celestino Vietti’s Boscoscuro and crashed at the opening corner from the top six.

Daniel Muñoz (Italtrans Racing Team) then muscled Gonzalez back to P4, and David Alonso (CFMOTO Power Electronics Aspar Team) shoved the Spaniard back to P5 at the start of Lap 3.

Gonzalez’s Moto2 title rival was having issues of his own. Izan Guevara (BLU CRU Pramac Yamaha Moto2) made a promising getaway from 10th on the grid to reach P7, but soon found himself being used as target practice by the charging Ivan Ortola (QJMOTOR – MSI), with Senna Agius then capitalising on Guevara’s lack of pace to get by as well.

By Lap 8, it was clear neither championship contender was set for a stellar evening, as Ortola then sailed past Gonzalez for P4 and Guevara found himself battling to hold off Vietti.

Then Guevara’s champion aspirations took a gut-punch as his bike dramatically slowed going into Turn 1 and he was forced to pull out of the race, a rare Triumph engine technical issue causing him to suffer his first DNF since the 2025 Japanese GP 13 months ago and leaving him pointless at exactly the wrong time of the season.

Up front, the late-race story belonged to MotoGP-bound Daniel Holgado (CFMOTO Power Electronics Aspar Team). After finishing P2 last weekend in Malaysia, the #96 went one better in Qatar, stealing P1 from Escrig and immediately stretching the gap to 1.2s and then 1.6s before crossing the line 2.2s clear for his second win of the season.

Behind the runaway leader, the podium fight tightened rather than eased. Escrig was in the mix all the way to the flag, but Ortola came steaming through from P14 on the grid and pinched P2 in a photo-finish run to the line, helped by a brilliant launch out of the final corner.

Alonso finished 1.8s away from the Ortola-Escrig scrap in P4, with Muñoz re-passing Gonzalez to take fifth. Gonzalez then concentrated on getting his Triumph-Kalex home after his team gave him a dashboard message ’28 OUT’, allowing ‘ManuGas’ to stretch the title lead to 13.5 points with just two rounds remaining.

Agius was 0.6s behind his teammate in P7, while Jose Antonio Rueda (Red Bull KTM Ajo) grabbed an equal-best Moto2 finish in P8. Filip Salač (OnlyFans American Racing Team) and Vietti rounded out the top 10, with Vietti unable to properly recover after the early contact.

Senna Agius – P7
“The race wasn’t bad, even though I’d hoped for more. The bike felt pretty good, and I handled the grip situation quite well. At least I felt like I was handling it better than the riders around me. The limiting factors were acceleration and top speed, which made it pretty difficult to close the gap, because I was often passed on the straights. Still, I was riding well, and the feeling with the tires was good, too. Unfortunately, I lost too much ground on the straights and couldn’t control it. A big thank you to the guys in the pit for their great work. Even if the result on paper doesn’t suggest it, the feeling is definitely there. We just need to squeeze out that last bit of performance to get back to good results and back on the path to victory. I don’t think we’re far off, but we need to improve a few things and figure out how to get that last percent out of our bike.”

2026 QATAR MOTO2 RACE

2026 MOTO2 STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 20 OF 22