ACOSTA TAKES P9 OF MEMORABLE AND UNIQUE BRITISH GRAND PRIX IN SILVERSTONE, FERNANDEZ FINISHES 16TH

A special Sunday took place at Silverstone circuit, as all premier class teams displayed a unique liveries to celebrate the 75th anniversary of MotoGP™. As Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 presented a white livery with vintage logos of its key partners, Pedro Acosta claimed the 9th position of the British Grand Prix, while Augusto Fernandez finished in 16th of the tenth round of 2024.

After his top 5 finish in yesterday’s Tissot Sprint, rookie Pedro Acosta was motivated for even better on the long distance, after he showed good competitiveness in Saturday’s 10-lap shootout. Ready to get on the gas in white, Acosta took a decent start as lights went out at 13:00 local time (GMT+1), under some quite uncertain clouds. Luckily, the rain never came. The rookie had to avoid Brad Binder who seemed to have an issue at the start, and he found himself in P8 behind Jack Miller, with Maverick Vinales just behind. After a few turns, Fabio Di Giannantonio passed by, while Miller had dropped, and Acosta was still in 8th exiting lap 1, while Francesco Bagnaia had started to make a small gap of 0.3 seconds ahead of Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini. The next lap, the rookie was coming in hot and overtook the VR46 rider, now in the chase for both Marquez brothers ahead. However, Di Giannantonio was not letting go, and eventually he overtook Acosta on lap 5. Somehow, we saw the rookie lose a bit of rhythm from lap 6 as he started suffering from tyre drop at the rear, and Di Gia escaped ahead. However, the entertaining battle between the #49 and #73 allowed Acosta to catch them back, but once these two stopped fighting, the gap grew again. For a long while, the Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 settled in 8th, until Marco Bezzecchi caught him back in the final laps and overtook him on lap 17. That’s a P9 finish for Pedro Acosta in Silverstone, as the rookie adds another 7 points to his total, to head to the next round with a total of 122 points, 8 points behind Vinales.

On his side, Augusto Fernandez started in white from P17 again, but the start was not as successful as the Tissot Sprint’s. The Spaniard lost one position in the first corner as he tried to find a space in the traffic, but eventually he exited the first lap at his initial position as some riders had crashed ahead. Augusto found himself behind Joan Mir, and then a drop from Johann Zarco gave the #37 the opportunity to move up to P16, at the doors of the points, and the next lap he moved to 15th, but soon enough Franco Morbidelli passed him. In a similar scenario to his teammate, we saw Augusto become more and more affected with his tyres drop, and he did all his good to try to survive through. He finished the British Grand Prix in P16.

The Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 crew will now head to Spielberg in Austria, as an important round awaits the team on Pierer Mobility’s lands.

Position: 9th

Championship: 6^th

Points: 122

"The race in the end was better than expected, because we expected a very tough one. Taking a look at the whole weekend, maybe we could have approached the weekend in a different way in terms of strategy. On Friday I needed to focus on which engine to choose, then I had to fight my way to Q2 on Saturday morning as I did not have a lot of time to focus on myself. Anyway, P9 is not what we want, but we knew that Silverstone would be a track where we would suffer, so in the end, we can be happy with the final result."

Position: 16th

Championship: 17^th

Points: 15

"It has been one of the most difficult races of the year! At the start of the race, we were still on pace and fighting with the riders in the back of the group, but then the rear tyre dropped massively. Everything became so difficult, I was trying to save crashes and to just make it to the checkered flag. Not an easy one at all, but luckily we are heading to Austria next, where I hope we can be more competitive.”

Team Manager

"This weekend in England was trickier than what we expected. After yesterday’s sprint, we had hopes that we could perform well today, but the truth is that as soon as both Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernandez lost the performance on the rear tyre, everything became tricky, and the bike was difficult to ride. Pedro tried to find options, and somehow he managed to keep a decent pace. In these conditions, a P9 is probably the best we could do, we have to accept it. On his side, Augusto struggled to maintain the pace and finished outside of the points, which was not our target. Everyone in the garage and back at the factory is working extremely hard to improve our package, and we are all doing everything we can to achieve our target. Next race will be very special, in Austria at the home of Pierer Mobility, so let’s analyse everything from the weekend, and arrive in Spielberg strong.”

GALLERY

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