Maximo Quiles (1st): “It’s always something special to win at Assen!”

Maximo Quiles is the benchmark in the Moto3 World Championship. Although he had to let the rookies Hakim Danish and Brian Uriarte finish ahead of him at Brno, the Aspar rider still picked up vital championship points with his third-place finish. At Assen, he was back in the driving seat.

On Saturday in qualifying, Quiles secured pole position. In Sunday’s race, he entered the first corner in the lead, before being overtaken by David Almansa (Intact GP) and Uriarte (KTM Ajo). Quiles then remained consistently among the leading group, regaining the lead halfway through the race.

Quiles and Almansa were then able to pull away from the rest of the field. At first, it looked as though Brno winner Danish would also be able to keep up with the two Spaniards, but the Malaysian was forced to drop back in the final laps. By the final lap, the lead held by the two frontrunners had grown to just under two seconds. In the final stretch, Quiles gave Almansa no chance – he crossed the finish line half a second ahead.

It was Maximo Quiles’ sixth win of the season. “It’s always something special to win at Assen. It’s a historic circuit, and whenever I watched the races on TV, I used to think to myself: ‘I hope I can win here one day’,” said a delighted Quiles.

At the same time, Quiles secured the Aspar team’s 50th victory in the Moto3 World Championship. Team-mate Marco Morelli finished third. And: Aspar rider David Alonso won the Moto2 race. “It was a brilliant day for the team; we’re making a name for ourselves, especially with this one-two finish alongside my team-mate,” emphasised Quiles. “I’m looking forward to more weekends like this. I knew it was going to be a good race. I was on different tyres to most of the riders, but I felt very comfortable right from the start. I saved my energy for the end and started pushing harder until I saw that they were struggling a bit to keep up with me.” Quiles contested the race on a medium rear tyre.

Topic of the week

Topic of the week: Aprilia comeback? The truth is: Aprilia never went away!

Four weeks ago, Aprilia headed into the summer break from Germany with a badly injured Marco Bezzecchi. The response came from the heart of British motor racing: ‘Together we are strong!’

Read more

TV program

Live

Aragon: International Livestream

MotoGP World Championship

28.08.2026 - 08:55

“On the final lap, I opened the throttle even more and managed to win. I was sure Almansa would try to overtake me, but I pushed as hard as I could on that last lap,” said Quiles. “I think it was a well-deserved victory, and we need to savour it. I’m absolutely thrilled with today’s result; we’ll keep fighting to achieve even more.”

In the overall standings, Quiles has extended his lead over Alvaro Carpe (KTM Ajo) to 90 points. Almansa is currently in third place with 109 points.