Honda rookie Moreira (7th) overtaken in the final: “Then came the slump”

Diogo Moreira put in a strong sprint race and was in 6th place at one stage. In the closing stages, however, he was overtaken and finished seventh. The rookie was once again the highest-placed Honda rider.

Toni Schmidt

MotoGP

29.08.2026 - 19:29

This article is an automatically generated English version. The Original Article was published in German.

Diogo Moreira fuhr ein beherztes Rennen – Platz 7 im Sprint
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Diogo Moreira

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Diogo Moreira’s path to three sprint points was a bumpy one. Moreira had to go through Q1 and crashed in the process. His time was enough to get him into Q2, where he secured tenth place on the grid. In the eleven-lap sprint, the Brazilian moved up the field early on, overtaking Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Raul Fernandez (Aprilia), amongst others, and was in sixth place at one stage before being overtaken by Fermin Aldeguer (Ducati) on the final lap. “I was strong under braking; I was able to brake hard on every lap,” said Moreira, who did, however, identify a problem. “In the last three laps, the rear tyre was done. I think we’ve survived the day.”

All the Honda riders were on the soft rear tyre, which, according to Moreira, was not a strategic decision. “In our situation, we can’t do the sprint on the medium tyre,” he explained. “We can’t work with it for the race either.”

Moreira’s lap times plummeted in the final four laps. He could only manage times in the 1:48s, causing him to lose touch with the top five and be overtaken by Aldeguer. The drop-off came because he’d pushed too hard in the opening laps. “But that was actually good for us, because we’d built up that gap at the start. Only Fermin got past us on the final lap.”

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Diogo Moreira

Target for Sunday: Top 10, a cautious approach in the opening laps

He’s tempering his expectations for the race. “To be honest, we’ll have to fight for a top-10 finish – that’s the goal. Tomorrow, lots of riders will be up front on the medium tyre – Raul, Pecco.” One thing that puts his mind at ease: the arm problems he had at the start of the season are a thing of the past; as far as the up-and-coming rookie is concerned, they’ve disappeared. “We’re now more relaxed on the bike, which makes it easier to get through the race.”

There’s one point that shows just how much the premier class is testing the rookie. When asked whether he could drift on the MotoGP bike in the same way as he does in Supermoto training, Moreira replied: “It’s difficult here because we have a lot of control systems on the bike. It’s always a compromise. I know I could push harder at the start – but if I push harder, we’ll end up with no grip left.” His assessment of the Aragon weekend so far sounded positive: “I’ve enjoyed every session this weekend.”

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