Salac breaks through in Silverstone slugfest

Filip Salac claims a maiden Moto2 victory after Gonzalez celebrates too early, while technical problems derail Senna Agius

Moto2 delivered a remarkable contest at the Qatar Airways Grand Prix of Great Britain, with Filip Salač emerging from a frantic 17 lap fight at Silverstone Circuit to secure his maiden win in the class. The OnlyFans Czechia rider came out on top in a race that kept changing shape right to the final moments.

At the start, Izan Guevara and Alonso Lopez went head to head, with Guevara narrowly holding the advantage in the opening exchanges. Lopez stayed with him through the first lap before the order settled temporarily, as Guevara led from Lopez and Ortola by Lap 2. Daniel Muñoz and Holgado were also firmly in the mix, and it did not take long for Holgado to charge forward. By Lap 3 he had already moved into second after showing strong pace in the early laps, helping Guevara gain a little breathing room at the front.

Elsewhere, David Alonso endured another difficult turn in his weekend when he was given a Long Lap penalty for causing Collin Veijer to crash on lap 1.

Agius also struck trouble early. After entering the weekend with expectations of a strong result given his win at the venue last year, he slipped back to 19th at the beginning of Lap 8 after running off the track. Further details later confirmed he had been hampered by a technical issue, specifically a shifting problem, which severely limited his race from the opening laps.

As the laps ticked down, the pressure intensified at the front. On Lap 9, Holgado used the draft on Hangar Straight to great effect and dived underneath Guevara at Stowe, taking over at the head of the field. By then the leading group had compressed even further, with Gonzalez, Tony Arbolino and Salač all close enough to strike.

With six laps remaining the touch paper was lit, as Arbolino moved into first and Ortola went dropped to fourth as the positions shuffled rapidly between Holgado, Gonzalez and the rest of the lead group. Guevara remained in contention too, with Salač still hovering within range.

Arbolino’s charge suddenly ended in the Vale chicane when he crashed the front with a little over four laps to go, much to the chagrin of his good friend Fabio Quartararo watching from the pits. Guevara, arriving just behind the incident, ran wide and lost valuable ground. That left Holgado, Gonzalez, Ortola and Salač clear in the fight for victory, while Escrig edged closer into position to benefit from any further drama.

With two laps left, the lead group had been reduced to four, and Gonzalez finally hit the front for the first time. But the decisive twist was still to come. As the riders began the final lap, Gonzalez crossed the line in the lead and mistakenly started celebrating. Standing on the pegs and rolling off slightly, he created a dangerous situation for Holgado directly behind. In trying to avoid him, Holgado clipped Gonzalez’s exhaust, bending it and causing damage that left Gonzalez to limp around the last lap on his Triumph Kalex.

With Gonzalez suddenly out of contention, Holgado then suffered a huge rear end moment exiting Luffield, leaving Escrig to inherit third. Up front it became a straight duel between Salač and Ortola, with the Czech rider holding his nerve and defending calmly under intense pressure. At the finish he had done enough, taking the win by 0.303s.

Ortola’s runner up result lifted him to fourth in the standings, while Escrig’s breakthrough podium arrived in dramatic fashion, only 0.652s from victory. Holgado recovered to finish fourth, with Guevara crossing in fifth and trimming the points gap to Gonzalez in the process. Lopez marked his return with sixth, followed by Muñoz, Deniz Öncü, Barry Baltus and Sergio Garcia.

Further back, Gonzalez slipped to 14th after the late damage, finishing behind Ayumu Sasaki, Joe Roberts and Celestino Vietti. It was an extraordinary end to what had looked like a likely win.

For Agius, Silverstone became a salvage job rather than the championship opportunity it might have been. The Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP rider refused to retire despite the mechanical limitation and kept circulating to collect what he could from a difficult afternoon. While the result hurt, he remains third in the Moto2 World Championship on 136 points and heads to the Grand Prix of Aragón on the last weekend in August intent on bouncing back.

Filip Salač – P1
“Man, I have no words, you know. It’s been long journey. I’ve been waiting for this 24 years. The race today was amazing, was decent. I tried to don’t do mistake and I did it. I still don’t believe it, you know. P1, like I said, many years struggling, working hard, and now I’m on P1 in a Grand Prix. I’m a Grand Prix winner after many years as a Czech rider, and I hope it’s not the last one. And I always want to say something, but today I have no words. Just thanks to my family, thanks to my sponsors, thanks to my manager Jan Šoviček, everybody sponsoring me, everybody supporting on this journey because it has been amazing and this, this is a dream. It’s my best, it’s the best day of my life and we keep going, feet on the ground and into the next one. I want to do it even better. Thank you.”

Ivan Ortola – P2
“Well, to be honest, this race was really chaotic. It was a good pace at the beginning, but in the middle they start to fight a lot. I was starting to struggle a lot. Also to overtake because on the slipstream I didn’t arrive to be on the side to overtake, so I had to brake really hard. But anyway, I’m happy for this result. I knew that the victory was really close, but anyway, the regularity what we are having these last few races is really good for the championship. I don’t think about the championship, to be honest. I just keep to improve myself race by race and give my best, and it’s what we are doing. So happy for this result. And anything else, I can’t wait to do another one.”

Alex Escrig – P3
“I don’t really know what I have done. I know that I have really good speed during all the weekend. Yesterday the qualifying was not the perfect lap, but anyway, I just believe I— my strategy of the race was only to wait, wait, wait. Once I see that the group was broke, I push a lot to take it. I know that I have the pace, but it’s really difficult to close a gap like that. But anyway, the chaos also helped because Manuel and Orgado have, uh, well, it’s racing, so sometimes shit happens. But anyway, I’m really happy what I have done. I only thinking in the ride that take that fucking bike and go feeling that I can do it. And then today I, I have done one part and I only want to, to put that bike in the top. So I think I can do it.”

Manual Gonzalez – P14
“The race went more or less as we had expected, and to be honest, I had expected to be a bit faster initially. But in the first few laps, I struggled a bit when I was behind other riders. I’d been riding alone all weekend, but when you’ find yourselves riding in a group, it feels completely different. So, I tried to adapt and make a few adjustments, which resulted in me getting stronger and stronger and catching up. And in the final laps, I felt really comfortable in the battles and tried to win. However, a few laps earlier, I’d been looking for the lap counter display at the finish line but couldn’t see it. So, I thought it was the last lap, and I passed Dani in the final sector by braking really hard in a few spots. But he was fighting really hard, too. I wasn’t 100 percent sure if it was the last lap or not, so I crossed the finish line at full throttle, even though I was already celebrating a little bit. The bad luck was that Dani touched the sprocket and the exhaust, which is why I couldn’t fight anymore in the last lap. Anyway, we have to look on the bright side: Even though we struggled a bit today, we were one of the strongest packages on track and had a chance for victory. That’s why I’m not disappointed, I’m actually really happy with our overall performance. Still, I feel bad for the team that I made a mistake at the finish line.”

Senna Agius – P20
“Unfortunately, we had a technical problem today. That made it difficult to keep going, but I decided not to give up, even though the race was more or less over for me. I just tried to stay in the mix, avoid making mistakes, and see what we could still achieve to make the best of it. As I said, I decided not to retire, and I’m proud to have finished the race. The weekend at Silverstone was a bit more difficult. We need to understand the problem and make some changes, so it doesn’t happen again, and then start fresh at Aragon, where we know we’ll be fast. Still, many thanks to the team.”

2026 SILVERSTONE MOTO2 RACE

2026 MOTO2 STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 12