Solid sixth for determined Marini to cap off Australian GP

Luca 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.