MotoGP 2026
Round 20 – Qatar – Sunday – Moto2/3
Daniel Holgado and David Almansa each won by more than two seconds at Lusail on Sunday, while second place in both races came down to less than a tenth. Izan Guevara’s retirement gave Manuel González his first chance to clinch the Moto2 title at the next round in Portugal.
Moto2 Race
Holgado breaks clear as Guevara retires
Alex Escrig led the first 13 laps from pole, but Daniel Holgado was right on his back wheel by the time they started lap 14. The Aspar rider took the lead early in the lap and pulled clear to win by 2.3 seconds. It was his second victory of the season and his first since Brazil.
Collin Veijer went down at Turn 1 after contact with Celestino Vietti, while Daniel Muñoz came through from 11th to second on the opening lap.
González, who qualified second and started fifth after a grid penalty, was briefly third before ending the first lap fourth. David Alonso moved ahead of him on lap two.
Manuel González
“Things were going well on the first few laps, and I was able to stay with the group. But after about five laps, the bike wouldn’t turn properly into the corners, and my lap times started to slow down. The tire just wasn’t performing the way it should have. So, I tried to adjust my riding style a bit to stay with the group as long as possible. But that was impossible. So, I just tried to finish the race as best I could.”
Holgado took second back from Muñoz on lap four, then lost it to Aspar team-mate Alonso for two laps. A little over a second covered Escrig, Alonso, Holgado and Iván Ortolá at half-distance.
Ortolá had started 13th and set a new race lap record on lap five. Holgado was back in second on lap 10 and Ortolá took third from Alonso two laps later.
Guevara was running 10th on lap 14 after climbing as high as seventh. He brought the Pramac Boscoscuro back to the pits after a gearshift problem, his first retirement since the 2025 Japanese Grand Prix.
Izan Guevara
“Today, I could feel something was not right. Coming out of Turn 6, when I shifted from first to second gear, the engine would hesitate before responding again. Then, with five laps remaining, as I downshifted approaching Turn 1, the gearbox stopped working properly and I had to retire.”
Pramac had been looking into Guevara’s straight-line speed since Sepang. Team manager Alex De Angelis said the data showed Guevara was already losing ground on the straights before he stopped.
Alex De Angelis – Pramac Moto2 Team Manager
“We had already been experiencing a lack of engine performance since the previous Grand Prix, and I had been discussing this issue with the appropriate parties since Friday. We don’t yet know whether it is the same issue that caused today’s retirement, but the engine was clearly not performing as expected.”
Up front, Holgado had been just three hundredths behind Escrig as they started lap 14. He was ahead by the first split and had more than two seconds in hand by the end of lap 16.
Escrig started the last lap a quarter of a second clear of Ortolá and still had two tenths in hand at the final split.
Ortolá got him on the run to the line by two hundredths of a second.
Ortolá’s 20 points kept him third overall, 4.5 points ahead of Holgado, who moved up to fourth with the win.
Alonso finished fourth and Muñoz came back past González for fifth. Senna Agius gained two places on the opening lap after a grid penalty put him ninth. He slipped back to 10th before recovering to seventh, closing to within a quarter of a second of González at the final split. Agius finished six tenths behind his team-mate.
Senna Agius
“The limiting factors were acceleration and top speed, which made it pretty difficult to close the gap, because I was often passed on the straights. Still, I was riding well, and the feeling with the tires was good, too. Unfortunately, I lost too much ground on the straights and couldn’t control it.”
José Antonio Rueda was eighth, two tenths behind Agius. Filip Salač was another tenth back in ninth and Vietti completed the top ten.
Sixth place gave González ten points and took his lead from 3.5 to 13.5, with 286.5 points to Guevara’s 273. González needs to score at least 12 points more than Guevara at Portimão on 20–22 November to seal the title there. A win would do it if Guevara finished fourth or lower. Agius is sixth on 175.
Manuel González
“Now we’ll analyze the data so we’re fully prepared for Portugal and can keep pushing. The gap isn’t particularly large, so we’ll have to give it 100 percent again there. Plus, Portimão is a track where I’ve always felt very comfortable.”
Qatar Moto2 Race Results
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|---|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Bike | Time/Gap |
| 1 | D. Holgado | Kal | 35m13.340 |
| 2 | I. Ortola | Kal | +2.265 |
| 3 | A. Escrig | For | +2.285 |
| 4 | D. Alonso | Kal | +4.143 |
| 5 | D. Muñoz | Kal | +4.962 |
| 6 | M. Gonzalez | Kal | +8.396 |
| 7 | S. Agius | Kal | +9.034 |
| 8 | J. A. Rueda | Kal | +9.237 |
| 9 | F. Salac | Kal | +9.362 |
| 10 | C. Vietti | Bos | +10.470 |
| 11 | A. Lopez | Kal | +12.104 |
| 12 | A. Huertas | Kal | +16.080 |
| 13 | J. Roberts | Kal | +17.263 |
| 14 | A. Sasaki | Kal | +18.943 |
| 15 | B. Baltus | Kal | +20.052 |
| 16 | L. Lunetta | Bos | +21.516 |
| 17 | X. Zurutuza | For | +21.814 |
| 18 | T. Arbolino | Kal | +25.968 |
| 19 | A. Ferrandez | Bos | +26.091 |
| 20 | A. Piqueras | Kal | +26.230 |
| 21 | D. Öncü | Bos | +28.285 |
| 22 | M. Aji | Kal | +30.997 |
| 23 | M. Ferrari | Kal | +33.841 |
| Not Classified | |||
| NC | I. Guevara | Bos | +4 Laps |
| NC | Z. van der Goorbergh | Kal | +6 Laps |
| NC | T. Furusato | Kal | +8 Laps |
| Not Finished 1st Lap | |||
| DNF | C. Veijer | Kal | – |
Moto2 Championship Standings
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|---|---|---|
| Pos | Rider | Points |
| 1 | M. Gonzalez | 286.5 |
| 2 | I. Guevara | 273 |
| 3 | I. Ortola | 219.5 |
| 4 | D. Holgado | 215 |
| 5 | D. Alonso | 204 |
| 6 | S. Agius | 175 |
| 7 | F. Salac | 162 |
| 8 | C. Vietti | 146 |
| 9 | A. Lopez | 134.5 |
| 10 | D. Muñoz | 97 |
| 11 | C. Veijer | 89.5 |
| 12 | A. Escrig | 85 |
| 13 | T. Arbolino | 82.5 |
| 14 | B. Baltus | 61 |
| 15 | A. Huertas | 56 |
| 16 | J. A. Rueda | 56 |
| 17 | D. Öncü | 47.5 |
| 18 | J. Roberts | 47 |
| 19 | L. Lunetta | 27 |
| 20 | A. Sasaki | 26 |
| 21 | A. Piqueras | 20 |
| 22 | A. Ferrandez | 17.5 |
| 23 | A. Canet | 17.5 |
| 24 | T. Furusato | 17 |
| 25 | Z. van der Goorbergh | 14 |
| 26 | S. Garcia | 11 |
| 27 | M. Aji | 3 |
| 28 | M. Ramirez | 0 |
| 29 | X. Zurutuza | 0 |
| 30 | U. Orradre | 0 |
| 31 | J. Navarro | 0 |
| 32 | D. Foggia | 0 |
| 33 | J. Roulstone | 0 |
| 34 | M. Ferrari | 0 |
| 35 | M. Pawelec | 0 |
Moto3 Race
Almansa leads every lap as Kelso fights for fourth
David Almansa took the holeshot from second on the grid, set the fastest lap on his second tour and led all 16 laps to win by 2.5 seconds. It was his fourth victory of the season.
David Almansa
“Yesterday during Free Practice 2, we worked with the soft tires on both the front and rear, and I learned how to use them properly. That was very important for me and the team.”
Polesitter Maximo Quiles dropped as far as seventh on the opening lap and crossed the line fifth, while Brian Uriarte was running second behind Almansa.
Contact with David Muñoz sent Uriarte down at Turn 1 on lap two. Uriarte remounted and was last at the end of the lap. Muñoz served a long-lap penalty for that collision and a double long-lap penalty after a second incident put Eddie O’Shea out on lap six. Muñoz started the last lap 12th and finished eighth.
David Muñoz
“Of course, the race was a disappointment because of the three long laps. We have to accept that and try to handle such situations better in the future to avoid penalties. We need to keep working and look ahead.”
Quiles was back up to second on lap three and had closed to six tenths of Almansa, with Adrián Fernández in tow. Almansa pulled away in the second half, leaving the pair to settle second between them.
Fernández went through on lap 14 after Quiles made a mistake at Turn 6. Quiles closed again on the last lap, but Fernández held on by seven hundredths of a second.
Joel Kelso started 13th and first crossed the line in fourth on lap 11. He traded the spot with Álvaro Carpe and Veda Pratama in the closing laps. Kelso was still fourth at the last timing split before Pratama and Carpe got past him. Three tenths covered the group at the flag. Pratama took fourth, Carpe fifth and Kelso sixth, matching his season best from Silverstone. Hakim Danish finished seventh.
Uriarte recovered to 14th and clinched Rookie of the Year, 63 points clear of Pratama with 50 available. CFMOTO Gaviota Aspar secured the teams’ title with Quiles third and Marco Morelli 15th. Almansa moved 37 points clear of Carpe in the fight for second overall and can secure it with a top-four finish in Portugal, on countback if needed.
David Almansa
“Of course, it was a bit of a shame that we couldn’t really compete seriously for the championship. But we’ll fight for the runner-up title as if it were the championship itself and give it our all in the last two races to achieve our goal.”
Qatar Moto3 Race Results
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| Pos | Rider | Bike | Time/Gap |
| 1 | D. Almansa | KTM | 33m09.479 |
| 2 | A. Fernandez | Hon | +2.516 |
| 3 | M. Quiles | KTM | +2.585 |
| 4 | V. Pratama | Hon | +5.653 |
| 5 | A. Carpe | KTM | +5.7 |
| 6 | J. Kelso | Hon | +5.954 |
| 7 | H. Danish | KTM | +7.315 |
| 8 | D. Muñoz | KTM | +11.381 |
| 9 | R. Yamanaka | KTM | +11.428 |
| 10 | S. Ogden | KTM | +11.465 |
| 11 | G. Pini | Hon | +11.575 |
| 12 | R. Salmela | KTM | +11.982 |
| 13 | Z. Mitani | Hon | +12.391 |
| 14 | B. Uriarte | KTM | +14.318 |
| 15 | M. Morelli | KTM | +15.151 |
| 16 | V. Perrone | KTM | +20.176 |
| 17 | J. Rios | Hon | +20.297 |
| 18 | C. O’Gorman | Hon | +21.473 |
| 19 | K. Singhapong | Hon | +33.793 |
| 20 | L. Rammerstorfer | Hon | +34.131 |
| 21 | R. Moodley | KTM | +36.595 |
| 22 | K. Mononyane | KTM | +1m01.373 |
| Not Classified | |||
| NC | E. O’Shea | Hon | +11 laps |
| NC | J. Esteban | KTM | +12 laps |
| NC | A. Cruces | KTM | +14 laps |
Moto3 Championship Standings
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| Pos | Rider | Points |
| 1 | M. Quiles | 392 |
| 2 | D. Almansa | 253 |
| 3 | A. Carpe | 216 |
| 4 | B. Uriarte | 207 |
| 5 | A. Fernandez | 177 |
| 6 | V. Pratama | 144 |
| 7 | M. Morelli | 141 |
| 8 | H. Danish | 125 |
| 9 | V. Perrone | 121 |
| 10 | M. Bertelle | 103 |
| 11 | R. Salmela | 93 |
| 12 | G. Pini | 86 |
| 13 | A. Cruces | 80 |
| 14 | J. Esteban | 78 |
| 15 | J. Kelso | 74 |
| 16 | D. Muñoz | 72 |
| 17 | E. O’Shea | 66 |
| 18 | C. O’Gorman | 66 |
| 19 | R. Yamanaka | 53 |
| 20 | J. Rios | 48 |
| 21 | S. Ogden | 39 |
| 22 | D. Gonzalez | 7 |
| 23 | Z. Mitani | 6 |
| 24 | M. Uriarte | 5 |
| 25 | C. Buchanan | 5 |
| 26 | L. Rammerstorfer | 2 |
| 27 | K. Singhapong | 1 |
| 28 | R. Moodley | 0 |
| 29 | R. Ogiwara | 0 |
| 30 | N. Carraro | 0 |
| 31 | L. Abruzzo | 0 |
| 32 | E. Gutierrez | 0 |
| 33 | K. Mononyane | 0 |
2026 MotoGP Calendar
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| 21 |
22 Nov
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Portugal
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Autodromo Internacional do Algarve
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| 22 |
29 Nov
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Valencia
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Circuit Ricardo Tormo
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