Raul Fernandez broke through for his maiden MotoGP victory in Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix, the Spanish rider winning on his 76th premier-class start for Aprilia to take the first victory for the Trackhouse Racing team at Phillip Island.
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The 24-year-old, who had never led a lap in a Grand Prix before Sunday, built a significant lead when early pace-setter Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) served a pair of long-lap penalties, Fernandez crossing the line for his first win since his 2021 Moto2 runner-up campaign by 1.418 seconds.
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Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio – from 10th on the grid – took his second Australian Grand Prix podium in three years with second place, with Bezzecchi fighting back to finish third, denying Ducati’s Alex Marquez for the final spot on the rostrum with two laps remaining.
Fernandez’s victory made it back-to-back first-time MotoGP winners, with compatriot Fermin Aldeguer (Ducati) winning the Indonesian Grand Prix in his rookie season a fortnight ago, and the Spaniard was the fifth different winner in the past five Grands Prix.
“I cannot believe it, I’m sorry because I am not believing,” Fernandez said.
“After a long time, we found something … all the team always believed in me, they never stopped to support me. It is a consequence of hard work, so thanks to them.
“The last five laps was super long for me.”
Celebrations all round for Senna Agius | 06:44
Bezzecchi, who won Saturday’s sprint race at Phillip Island but had to serve two long-lap penalties for his crash with Marc Marquez in Mandalika that left this year’s world champion requiring right shoulder surgery, bolted to an early lead but fell to third place when he served his first penalty on lap five, then sixth and 2.8 seconds from the lead with the second penalty was served two laps later, Fernandez inheriting the lead and running away to a 1.4sec advantage in the next two laps.
The Aprilia rider’s advantage swelled to three seconds with five laps remaining before Di Giannantonio, who finished third in Australia in 2023, took second place with five laps left but ran out of laps to hunt the leader down.
Two-time MotoGP world champion Francesco Bagnaia’s miserable recent run continued as he crashed from 12th place with four laps to go, while Australia’s Jack Miller – the first Australian to start their home Grand Prix from the front row in 13 years – fell from sixth place at Turn 6 on lap five, unable to reprise his shock run to fourth place in Saturday’s sprint.
In Moto2, Australian Senna Agius took his second world championship victory by dominating from start to finish, the Sydney 20-year-old winning by 3.684 seconds to become the first Australian in any class to win at Phillip Island since Miller’s Moto3 victory in 2014.
Agius, whose maiden world championship podium came at Phillip Island last year when he finished third, cleared off after taking the lead on the opening lap from second on the grid, the Kalex rider building a lead that peaked at six seconds 20 laps into the 23-lap race before easing off to win after taking his maiden Moto2 victory earlier this year at the British Grand Prix.
Agius became the first Australian to win an intermediate-class Grand Prix at home, and the result was his fifth Moto2 podium finish in his third season in the class.
Agius’ compatriot Harrison Voight, the 19-year-old Moto2 European Championship regular who was substituting for injured Spanish rider Unai Orradre at the MSI Racing Team, finished 26th from 27th on the grid.
In Moto3, Australian Joel Kelso (KTM) matched a career-best result with second place behind world champion Jose Antonio Rueda (Spain, KTM), the 22-year-old from Darwin finishing just eight-tenths of a second from victory after starting from pole position.
Kelso, who finished third at Phillip Island in a rain-lashed 2023 Moto3 race, led early and sat right in Rueda’s wheel tracks for the majority of the 21-lap duration to match his second place in this year’s French Grand Prix for his best world championship race finish, and earned his fifth podium result.
Kelso’s compatriot Jacob Roulstone crashed out of third place on lap four after scything through the field from 13th on the grid, the Wollongong 20-year-old leading a chasing pack behind Rueda and Kelso in third place when he fell at Turn 6.
Round 20 of the 22-round MotoGP season will take place at Sepang in Malaysia from October 24-26.
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