It was a slightly different Saturday than the usual that awaited the GASGAS Factory Racing Tech3 team at Phillip Island, as the main race took place on Saturday in anticipation of Sunday's bad weather forecast. In the morning, Pol Espargaro qualified in eleventh on the grid, while his teammate Augusto Fernandez classified fourteenth. However, his grid penalty obtainted on Friday’s Practice meant that he had to line up in seventeenth in today’s main race. Later on, it was a total disappointment for the rookie who crashed in the race as he made a mistake, while Pol Espargaro’s tyre choice caused him a big drop halfway through the race, and he finished eighteenth.  

Directly qualified for Q2 after his fifth place in Practice, Pol Espargaro enjoyed Free Practice 2 this morning and took the opportunity to finalise his race’s settings, with the track conditions being different to yesterday, colder. He was tenth of FP2 with a best lap in 1’30.034, the first Pierer Mobility bike of the session. In a busy qualifying 2, the lap times were very fast, early into the session. In his second run, Espargaro rode in 1’28.234, faster than yesterday, and got himself an eleventh place on the grid, his best qualifying result of the season. As he brought all the positives from his weekend into the race, there were a lot of hopes for the Spaniard who was targeting a top 10. With the track conditions a bit cold, the tyres choice was a hot topic on the grid today. Eventually, the number 44 opted for a hard at the front and a soft at the rear, a risky choice with twenty-seven laps to come, at full gas. When lights went out at 15:10 local time (GMT+11), Espargaro took a decent start and gained two positions within the first lap to P9 just behind today’s hero Johann Zarco, with Maverick Vinales, Enea Bastianini, Alex Marquez and Marco Bezzecchi behind him. Zarco gained one position the following lap, leaving Pol just behind brother Aleix Espargaro. Eventually, he dropped two positions to Marquez and Bezzecchi as he sat again in P11. Until twelve laps, Espargaro was competitive and managed to hold his position, he even rode his fastest race lap in 1’29.786 on lap 3, which is today’s eleventh fastest lap. From lap 13, his lap times started to drop in the 1’31, confirming that the soft tyre was a risky choice. The GASGAS Tech3 rider tried to control the big drop as much as he could, but could not do much more as he continued to lose positions, until he saw the checkered flag in eighteenth.

Augusto Fernandez experienced a disappointing Saturday after he had been very competitive since the start of the weekend on the island. Unfortunately, things didn't go his way in Saturday's main race. In FP2 this morning, he closed the session in twelfth with a best in 1’30.159. Ready for qualifying 1, he did everything right, and was provisionally in the top 2 thanks to his fast lap in 1’28.435. He continued to set strong laps in the second run, but unfortunately, the Marquez brothers got the best of him as they were in his wheel. He got kicked out by the two in the last moments of Q1, and finished fourth of the session. That’s a P14 on the grid, but his penalty from Friday’s practice meant that he would line up in seventeenth for the main race. Unlike his teammate, Fernandez opted for medium at the rear, a choice that would have turned out to be the right one for the rookie if he had finished the race. At the race start, he took his time to adapt to the race pace and the tyres, and maintained his seventeenth position. For a while, he was behind Luca Marini at a similar pace, but he struggled to find a way to overtake him. Eventually, the Spaniard started to feel more and more confident as the race went by, but as he tried to push a bit more to catch up with the others, he lost the front and crashed. That was it for the number 37 on Saturday, who will try to bring back to his team a better result in tomorrow’s Tissot Sprint, at 13:00 local time (GMT+11).