Miguel Oliveira moves up in the MotoGP World Championship after finishing 12th

Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira (Yamaha) gained a position in the MotoGP World Championship today after finishing 12th in the Australian MotoGP Grand Prix, won by Spaniard Raul Fernandez (Aprilia), in Philip Island.

Oliveira, who started from 16th position, crossed the finish line 17.677 seconds behind the winner, Raul Fernandez, who beat the Italian Fábio DiGiannantonio (Ducati) by 1.418 seconds, with fellow Italian Marco Bezzecchi (Aprilia) in third, 2.410 seconds behind.

Raul Fernandez thus gave the Trackhouse team, the same team Miguel Oliveira was part of in 2024, its first ever victory, becoming the seventh different winner this season.

In a race in which the already champion Marc Márquez was absent due to injury, as was the 2024 champion, Jorge Martin (Aprilia), it was Marco Bezzecchi who dominated in an early phase of the race, delayed by an hour due to strong gusts of wind on the island where the Australian circuit is built.

Bezzecchi had to serve a two-lap long penalty for causing the crash that injured Marc Márquez in the previous round in Indonesia.

"It was a super tough race. With the penalty, it got even more complicated. I pushed hard at the start to gain some advantage when I served the penalties," explained the Italian.

Bezzecchi would drop to seventh place after completing the longest track of the Philip Island circuit, eventually making his way back to the bottom step of the podium.

Without Bezzecchi at the front, it was up to Raul Fernandez to jump to the front of the pack, to win what was the 76th race he competed in in the premier class.

"We knew we had to save the rear tire. It was a super long race for me. The last five laps were really hard to get through," admitted the Madrid rider, who hadn't won since the 2021 Valencia GP, his last Moto2 race. Fernandez beat Fábio Di Giannantonio, who had started from 10th on the grid.

Miguel Oliveira started from 16th place, then dropped to 17th place, but gained positions, benefiting from the falls of Italian Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) and Spaniard Joan Mir (Honda).

On the last lap, the Portuguese still managed to pass the Spaniard Fermin Aldeguer (Ducati), rising to 12th place, which allowed him to add four points that put him in 20th place in the championship, overtaking the Spaniard Jorge Martin.

Oliveira now has 36 points. Marc Márquez has already mathematically secured the title with 545 points. With today's result, Bezzecchi moved up to third place with 282, already preventing Spain's Alex Márquez (Ducati) from finishing second, with 379.

The next round will be the Malaysian GP, ​​in a week's time.