Solid sixth for determined Marini to cap off Australian GP
Phillip IslandLuca Marini had his mettle tested across the entire 27-laps of race day in Phillip Island, the Italian narrowly missing out on fifth place after a late charge. Mir tumbled from a top ten challenge.
Delayed an hour, the Australian GP avoided the worst of the day’s wind and saw the main event go ahead without any further delay or incident. With some cloud cover overhead, conditions remained as they had been for much of the weekend in Phillip Island.
Aggressive from the start, Luca Marini made sure to attack Pol Espargaro early to try and avoid a repeat of their intense battle on Saturday. Besting him after a few laps, Marini focused on staying with a fast-recovering Bezzecchi and breaking free of the chasing group. Matching the times of the leaders, the #10 rapidly closed down Acosta in the final five laps and missed taking fifth place from him by the narrowest of margins – just 0.040s at the line.
Sixth place is Marini’s 11th top ten result of the season and continues a clear trend of further improvement post-Misano Test. The result moves Marini to within just eight points of Zarco as the pair contest top Honda honours and a potential top ten spot in the World Championship.
Joan Mir’s race came to a premature end when he fell from 12th place on lap 10 at Turn 10. Unharmed, it was an unfortunate result as the #36 and the Honda HRC RC213V clearly had the pace for the top ten at full distance.
A quick hop, skip and a jump for the Honda HRC Castrol team as they head to the Sepang International Circuit for Round 20 of the 2025 MotoGP World Championship. Having started the season there with testing, the Malaysian GP is always a good chance to benchmark the improvements made over the year.
A tough race but it makes our finish more rewarding. A decent amount of points but a lot of good work by the team and Honda HRC over the weekend, it’s important to work like this every weekend. This weekend we couldn’t turn the bike like we needed to at a faster circuit like Phillip Island, it’s something to work on in future development. The target is to finish ahead of Zarco in the championship, and we have been closing him down with each race. We head to Malaysia with a lot of motivation, staying positive and believing in our potential that we have shown. There is still more potential to unlock in our overall package, we’ve made a good step but we need to keep working.
A tough race but it makes our finish more rewarding. A decent amount of points but a lot of good work by the team and Honda HRC over the weekend, it’s important to work like this every weekend. This weekend we couldn’t turn the bike like we needed to at a faster circuit like Phillip Island, it’s something to work on in future development. The target is to finish ahead of Zarco in the championship, and we have been closing him down with each race. We head to Malaysia with a lot of motivation, staying positive and believing in our potential that we have shown. There is still more potential to unlock in our overall package, we’ve made a good step but we need to keep working.
From lap one something felt strange, and I was not able to overtake and ride as I really wanted. Still, we could make up some positions, and I think there was a lot more potential today. We had something on the front tyre with the temperature, which is really critical with these bikes. Obviously, I am not happy with how our weekend went, we knew that it would be a harder weekend, but we were aiming to come away with something more. Now for Malaysia where we aim to get back into the groove we’ve had the last races.
From lap one something felt strange, and I was not able to overtake and ride as I really wanted. Still, we could make up some positions, and I think there was a lot more potential today. We had something on the front tyre with the temperature, which is really critical with these bikes. Obviously, I am not happy with how our weekend went, we knew that it would be a harder weekend, but we were aiming to come away with something more. Now for Malaysia where we aim to get back into the groove we’ve had the last races.
