Augusto Fernández is proclaimed Moto2 world champion

Augusto Fernández Guerra (Madrid, 1997), has been proclaimed this Sunday as the new Moto2 champion.

At the Valencia GP, a mistake by his rival for the title, Ai Ogura, certified his championship at turn 8 of the eighth lap.

The Japanese from Honda pressed the brakes too much and crashed his options in the cruelest way after giving a lot of wax in the initial stages.

“79 KO”, they marked him on the wall and on the electronic screen of the motorcycle.

Despite the emotional rollercoaster, the Mallorcan knew how to keep his head in his place to finish second in a test that was won by his teammate Pedro Acosta, best rookie of the season in the intermediate category.

“I have no words to describe what I feel.

I want to thank all the people who have supported me until I got here.

I still have to take it in."

The new champion, who has lived in Mallorca since he was very young, joins the list of famous island champions, who this year also enjoyed the Moto3 crowning of Izan Guevara.

Like the kid from Aspar and like Joan Mir, from next Tuesday a new Honda rider, Fernández leaves the notable cast of athletes trained at the Balearic Islands sports modernization center (CTEIB).

There, the Balearic Federation of Motorcycling has reserved nine places among the total of 250 students from different disciplines.

“Difficulties make us more creative.

It is more difficult to travel, to move.

Here we jokingly call this the ensaimada effect, but to be fair it has more to do with the barriers to overcome due to insularity”, explains Rafa Cañellas, president of the organization.

And Mir adds:

“Great drivers are coming out having a little circuit there.

Let's see if the three of us meet soon."

Fernández is 25 years old, but he is a veteran of the races in the category.

His definitive success comes after six seasons rowing in the intermediate class, where he has forged an alternative path to MotoGP.

Next year, and having gotten rid of the title bug, he will debut alongside the best on the back of a GASGAS, the Spanish brand that bursts onto the grid under the aegis of KTM, the factory with which the umpteenth Balearic talent has been proclaimed number one.

A motocross bike for Reyes

The pilot, raised in Pina, a town of 600 inhabitants, has achieved glory after following a different path than most great champions.

"It was a mix between the economic and the physical," recalls his father, his main support figure on the circuits.

His son was trained in a parking lot under the tutelage of Chico Lorenzo, father of three-time world champion Jorge Lorenzo, with whom he was from 6 to 12 years old.

They did not know him and it was by chance – they saw an advertising poster – that he ended up in his school.

During that formative phase, he shared walks with his little brother Alejandro, who for years shared with him the first motocross bike that the Three Wise Men brought them.

Once the training phase was over, David Salom, cousin of the long-awaited Luis and runner-up in the Supersport category of Superbikes,

He got him an invitation to test at Magny-Cours, at the age of 13, his first big bike.

The small displacement ones were too small for him and his fastest lap in the race and seventh position with a Kawasaki 250cc opened the doors of the contest for him.

"By not being able to enter Moto3, it was the best option to compete and try out on world circuits, since we had nothing in Mallorca," recalls his father.

A year later, his son had been proclaimed Junior European Champion of the category.

since in Mallorca we had nothing”, recalls his father.

A year later, his son had been proclaimed Junior European Champion of the category.

since in Mallorca we had nothing”, recalls his father.

A year later, his son had been proclaimed Junior European Champion of the category.

From there he had to wake up, taking advantage of the lucky breaks and overcoming the bad moments that his path to success offered him.

Two isolated events in consecutive years gave him the opportunity to test himself in the Moto2 World Championship in 2017 and 2018. They first bet on him in Speed ​​Up. Despite his good performance, he was left without a place on the grid.

The following year, Sito Pons thought of him when Héctor Barberá tested positive for alcohol and was removed from the team.

In 2019, after achieving three victories and five podiums in his first full course, he consolidated himself in the category with a creditable fifth place.

Augusto Fernández has been proclaimed this Sunday as the new Moto2 champion. JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)

The Spanish pilot Augusto Fernández celebrates the victory with his team. Biel Aliño (EFE)

Fernández is 25 years old, but he is a veteran of the races in the category.

In the image, the pilot (in the foreground) is congratulated by a member of the team. JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)

Next year, and having gotten rid of the title bug, he will debut alongside the best on the back of a GASGAS, the Spanish brand that bursts onto the grid under the aegis of KTM, the factory with which the umpteenth Balearic talent has been proclaimed number one.

In the image, the pilot celebrates his victory at the finish line. JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)

The definitive success comes after six seasons rowing in the intermediate class, where an alternative path to MotoGP has been forged.

JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)

Fernández celebrates his victory with the team. JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)

The new champion, who has lived in Mallorca since he was very young, joins the list of famous island champions, who this year also enjoyed the Moto3 crowning of Izan Guevara.

JOSE JORDAN (AFP)

The pilot, raised in Pina, a town of 600 inhabitants, has achieved glory after following a different path than most great champions.

In the image, members of the team congratulate the pilot. JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)

Injuries and covid-19 took him off the radar in 2020, but when he replaced Álex Márquez at Marc VDS he recovered his best version.

In his first year with the team he convinced the heavyweights in Austria to move him up to MotoGP.

At home, where he has spent the last week with some nerves, Augusto likes to go pedaling all over the island.

With his physio and friend, former Trial pilot Marc Horrach, he loves going up to the sanctuary of Lluc, a beautiful enclave in the Serra de Tramuntana.

“We sting a little between us, the typical thing goes.

We like to go there and we stop for a moment to have a coffee and a toast, ”explains the coach of him.

Everyone highlights Fernández's ability to manage pressure very well, as well as the ease with which he adapts to changes in methodology and personnel in the garage.

His mother, a yoga teacher, has also taught him precisely how to channel emotions.

With a certain charisma and given to jokes, he plans to continue living on his land and close to his group of friends from school in Sencelles.

There, this Sunday,

Around 500 people gathered at the municipal sports center to see their countryman triumph in Valencia.

Another 30, members of his fan club, celebrated the alirón from the stands and received him with two kits on the track.

The boy is known as the Sencelles rabbit, since as a child he slept clutching a stuffed animal.

Nine podiums and four victories later, and with scares such as the fall that placed him in tow of Ogura in Australia, Augusto can celebrate that he will fulfill his dream, reach MotoGP, being world champion: “It is what all of us who get into in this mess since we were kids”.

Together with his family, who accompanied him for the occasion, he shed tears of joy after so many sacrifices.

Unpublished Izan Guevara poker

The other Majorcan champion of the course achieved an unprecedented milestone in Moto3 by winning in Valencia and completing the series of victories in the Spanish World Cup races, his fifth of the season.

He fired in style the great year of the 18-year-old pilot, who was more rogue than the Turkish Deniz Öncü.

After his rival overtook him with an aggressive move on the final lap, Guevara kept a cool head and timed a wide-open trajectory into the final corner to rocket to victory.

Behind him, Sergio García-Dols, his teammate in Aspar, finished third and culminated the great year of his team by certifying the runner-up in the world.

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