Fernandez conquers Misano track to take his third Triumph powered victory in last-lap thriller, closing in on championship lead

Flexbox HP40’s Augusto Fernandez put in another imperious performance at the Misano circuit over the weekend to take his third win of this incredibly competitive season, making his move on pole-sitter Fabio Di Giannantonio on the last lap to deny the Italian his first Moto2™ win with Triumph power by just 0.186 seconds. 

The pace of the weekend was hot from the start. In qualifying the top 11 riders were all within just 0.5 seconds of each other and the top 17 riders were separated by just 0.742 seconds. In the race, from the start the top four started to make a break, with Di Giannantonio leading away from Fernandez, Tom Luthi and Alex Marquez.

Whilst Marquez passed Luthi, who finished 1.5 seconds down on the championship leader in fourth after making a mistake and losing ground, it was Di Giannantonio and Fernandez who were out front engaged in a battle royale.

Di Giannantonio looked to be heading to his first ever Moto2™ career win, having led the whole race from the front, but enormous pressure from Fernandez saw the Spaniard claim his second win in a row, on the final lap. This victory reinforces his second position in the championship race, and closes him to 26 points behind long-time series leader Marquez.

Steve Sargent, Triumph’s Chief Product Officer, said: “In a fabulously close fought race, the Moto2 field showed the world that you should never give up. Just as Fabio Di Giannantonio looked set to take his career-first Moto2 victory, Augusto Fernandez pulled off an unbelievable manoeuvre to take a last lap victory. Tricky circuit conditions prevented any new lap records this weekend but it did allow the riders the opportunity to show how the Triumph engine allows them to drift the bike out of the corners. There was however another top speed record set here, by Somkiat Chantra, continuing the clean sweep of records at every round this season. With Augusto closing in on Alex for the title race, it’s not over yet!”

The Triumph Moto2™ 765cc race engine is a development of the class-leading Street Triple RS 765cc road motorcycle and produces more than 140PS and the same visceral soundtrack.

Next up for the Moto2™ championship is the Grand Prix of Aragon in Spain next weekend on Sunday 22nd September. This is the penultimate European round, being followed by an overseas quadruple of races in Thailand, Japan, Australia and Malaysia.

#PoweredByTriumph #TriumphOfficial

ENDS  

Notes to Editors

About Triumph

  • The Triumph Moto2™ 765cc race engine is a development of the class-leading Street Triple RS 765cc road motorcycle with the same visceral soundtrack.
  • First established in 1902, Triumph Motorcycles celebrated 115 years of motorcycle manufacture in 2017. For more than three decades, Triumph Motorcycles has been based in Hinckley, Leicestershire, and has produced iconic bikes that perfectly blend authentic design, character, charisma and performance.
  • Building around 65,000 bikes per year, Triumph is the largest British motorcycle manufacturer and has around 650 dealers across the world.
  • This focus, innovation and engineering passion has today created a broad range of bikes suited to all motorcycle riders, including the iconic new Scrambler 1200, epic Speed Triple, the game changing all new Street Triple 765, the class defining Tiger 900, transcontinental Tiger 1200, iconic Triumph Bonneville family including the stunning Speed Twin, Bonneville Bobber, legendary Thruxton, accessible Street Twin, Street Scrambler and iconic Bonneville T120 and T100, plus an exciting and accessible A2 range of Triumph motorcycles.
  • Triumph currently employs around 2,000 personnel worldwide and has subsidiary operations in the UK, North America, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, Sweden (Scandinavia), Benelux, Brazil, India and Thailand as well as a network of independent distributors. Triumph has manufacturing facilities in Hinckley, Leicestershire, and Thailand plus CKD facilities in Brazil and India.
  • The Triumph Bonneville, famously named to celebrate Triumph’s 1956 land speed record on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, was the original British superbike and a race-winner straight out of the crate, chosen by famous motorcyclists of the past for its legendary handling, style, and character. It’s that handling, character and style, married to modern rider-focused technology that makes the new Bonneville family THE authentic modern classic choice today.
  • Triumph has a glorious racing history, competing in and winning races in almost every class and field of motorcycle sporting achievement. From winning the second ever Isle of Man TT in 1908, through to 1960s road and track domination in Europe and America, right up to contemporary racing achievements with the 675cc Triumph triple powered 2014 Daytona 200 win, the 2014 Isle of Man Supersports TT win, the 2014 and 2015 British Supersports titles and World SuperSport racing, and again this year, with another victory at the Isle of Man Supersports TT, piloted by Peter Hickman. And of course with the new generation 765cc triple engine powering the 2019 Moto2™ championship, Triumph’s racing legend continues.