Tech3 MotoGP hopeful Senna Agius: Things are looking dicey for the World Championship third-placed rider

At the start of the first event following the summer break, things went brilliantly once again for Intact GP rider Senna Agius. The Australian, who had won his first Grand Prix on the island just over a year earlier, secured second place in Q2, comfortably ahead of World Championship leader Manu Gonzalez. However, things went awry in the crucial session. Partly due to the session being halted midway through qualifying, the rider in third place in the World Championship, from Jürgen Lingg’s team, was left stuck in 11th place, almost a second off the pace.

In Lap 1 of the Silverstone race, the tide seemed to be turning in favour of the number 81 once again – P9 after the first six kilometres, in touch with the leaders. But shortly afterwards, last year’s winner found himself almost at the back of the field. What had happened? Senna Agius reported sheepishly after crossing the finish line in an uncharacteristic 20th place. “Unfortunately, we had a technical problem today. It was therefore difficult to carry on, 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 any mistakes and see what we could still achieve.”

Ungewohnter Anblick: Senna Agius fuhr zuletzt hinterher

Foto: Ronny Lekl

Team principal Jürgen Lingg confirmed: “Senna simply couldn’t do any more. From lap 4 onwards, his automatic gearbox stopped working. That made it difficult – and impossible to attack. When you have to make up time on every lap because of technical issues, even if it’s only a few tenths, you’ve got no chance of recovering from that in Moto2.”

In England, his run of five top-four finishes came to an end

The breakdown was bitter in two senses. Senna Agius had recently been shining with outstanding consistency. Since the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello – five races ago – the youngster had never finished lower than fourth. As a result, Agius had firmly caught the attention of the MotoGP world – it is considered a certainty that the 21-year-old will be riding a KTM for the Tech3 team in the premier class in 2027.

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With a pointsless race and a 14th-place finish from Manuel Gonzalez, the Intact team’s winning streak on the island came to a very modest halt. However, as Aspar rider David Alonso also failed to score any points, the damage to the team standings was kept to a minimum. Ahead of the event at MotorLand Aragón, Liqui Moly Dynavolt Intact GP has an 89.5-point lead over the ‘Aspar’ Martinez team.

By contrast, Senna Agius’s lead in the World Championship has become significantly slimmer. Despite the setback, the second Intact rider remains in third place – but Ortola and Holgado have closed the gap to 2.5 and 8 points respectively.