ond. By lap 17 he was piling on
the pressure, and gravel spun up
from Collin Veijer's (Ajo Kalex)
turn-seven crash had the Italian
up and out of his seat.
Gonzalez struck soon after,
his race-winning pass on lap 19
ensuring his second victory of
the season. Despite the state
of his rear tire, Vietti hung in
there to keep it interesting until
the end, with just two-tenths of
a second separating them at
the flag—a fine result in his just
second race since the SpeedRS
team surprisingly switched from
Ӧhlins to WP suspension.
Izan Guevara (Pramac Bos
-
coscuro) rose from 11th to take
third with three laps to go, with
Aspar Kalex runners Dani Hol-
gado and David Alonso taking
the spots behind Ortola.
Not only did he manage the race
to perfection, reeling in Celesti-
no Vietti (SpeedRS Boscoscuro)
with three laps to go—it was a
reminder to the paddock he's de-
serving of a premier-class seat.
Gonzalez's camp has been
miffed over the past month at
the lack of interest from Mo-
toGP's teams for a seat in 2027.
With a ride alongside Jake Dixon
in Honda's factory WorldSBK
team next year now his likely
destination, the Spaniard
was fully fired up to show the
premier-class teams what they
could be missing.
Polesitter Vietti stormed into
an early lead ahead of Gonzalez
and Ivan Ortola (MSI Kalex) and
began stretching the pack apart.
But Gonzalez never allowed the
lead to stretch above one sec
-
crash, to second and third. It
lumped Mir down to 13th.
"It has been a crazy Sunday,"
Di Giannantonio said. "I am
happy about the win, happy
about the performance, but I
think the biggest win today is
that everyone is, more or less,
safe. I know Johann [Zarco] was
injured, Alex [Marquez] too; I'm
okay too, so this is the most
important thing."
Despite his worst weekend
of the year, Bezzecchi (142
points) extends his advantage
over Martin (127) to 15 points.
Di Giannantonio (116) is just 26
back, with Acosta (92) fourth.
Moto2
The sixth win of Manu Gonza-
lez's (IntactGP Kalex) Moto2
career was the sweetest yet.
ROUND 5 / MAY 15-17, 2026
CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA / BARCELONA, SPAIN
ROAD RACE I FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
P80
Manu Gonzalez (18) hunted
down Celestino Vietti with
relentless pace and took an
emotional home win in Moto2.
