It was another crazy Super Saturday of MotoGP™ that took place at the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello with Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernandez facing the qualifying sessions, before the Tissot Sprint in the afternoon. Respectively qualified in seventh and twentieth on the grid, Pedro Acosta delivered another solid sprint shootout, claiming P3, while Augusto Fernandez finished seventeenth.

Already qualified in Q2 after his third place in Friday’s Practice, MotoGP™’s star rookie, Pedro Acosta, officially future Red Bull KTM Factory rider for the 2025 season, needed Free Practice 2 to work on his race pace after his two crashes from the previous day reduced the opportunities to do so. As he closed the final practice in P5 a bit less than half a second away from the fastest, it was clear that the rookie had the potential to be competitive. At 11:15, the battle for the seventh pole position of 2024 began, and Pedro Acosta, sole Pierer Mobility representative, set an early lap in 1’45.028 that provisionally placed him on the second row. Meanwhile, an eventful session was taking place, with Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin constantly beating each other, Marc Marquez was on the way for the provisional pole but crashed, and Maverick Vinales joined the party too, hoping to place another Italian manufacturer than the promised one on the front row. The Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 rider could not improve his lap time, and he qualified in seventh on the grid, as Martin took the pole with a new all-time lap record of 1’44.504.

In the afternoon, as lights of the Tissot Sprint went out, it was a busy turn 1 but Pedro held on his grid position to find himself behind Vinales, on whom he quickly made a move on the inside to exit lap one in sixth behind Brad Binder, while Francesco Bagnaia had already made a small gap at the front, with Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini behind. On lap three, Bastia went down while he was trying to overtake Martin for 2nd place, placing Acosta in fifth behind Binder. Quickly the rookie made a nice move on his future teammate in T15 to exit in fourth on the main straight, to find himself a bit less than one second away from Marc Marquez who had made his way to the provisional prodium. Riding one second faster than the #33, Acosta escaped away from Binder, slowly catching up on the Martin-Marquez duo, while Franco Morbidelli was coming back quick with laps in the low 1’46. On lap 5, Marquez overtook Martin and that meant that the rookie was now in the chase for the 2023 runner-up. Two laps later, Martin was just 0.4 seconds away when he crashed, meaning that the #31 was on his way to another sprint podium. While Marquez improved his pace towards the end, Acosta refrained on his, as he aimed to secure another sprint podium, which he did! Back-to-back sprint podiums for the rookie, after he already claimed third of the sprint last week in Montmelo.

Yesterday in the office was tough for Augusto Fernandez who did not find the right way to ride the RC16 in Mugello, as he struggled all day to find a competitive pace. On Saturday morning, he tried to find a few solutions to improve his feeling, and it appeared that he had found some. However, starting from P20 on the grid in the afternoon's sprint, the start was not great for the Spaniard as he dropped to P22 in the first lap to find himself behind Salvadori. Once settled into the pace, he progressively gained back ground, progressing to 19th after lap 5, while we saw Joan Mir retiring. Half way through, he  was riding a bit  faster than the rider ahead, Salvadori, and finally made a move on him. Martin’s crash gave him the opportunity to pass the checkered flag in P17. Disappointing result for the Red Bull GASGAS Tech3 rider, who continues to find solutions to close the gap with the rest of the grid.

Tomorrow is the big day! Don’t miss the main race of the Gran Premio d’Italia Brembo, at 14:00 local time!