Moto3 rider loses Malaysian GP podium as stewards announce disqualification
Adrian Fernandez was third at Sepang but has been stripped of podium
Leopard Moto3 rider Adrian Fernandez has been disqualified from the Malaysian Grand Prix due to a technical infringement, which strips him of a podium.
The Spaniard, younger brother to MotoGP race winner Raul Fernandez, took the chequered flag in third two weeks ago in the shortened Malaysian Moto3 Grand Prix at Sepang.
Finishing just 2.625s from first-time winner Taiyo Furusato, it marked his fourth podium of the 2025 campaign for the Leopard Racing squad.
However, ahead of this weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix, the FIM stewards have announced that Fernandez’s bike failed a post-race technical check.
According to the stewards, he was found to have been using a “non-homologated” electronics map.
As such, he has been kicked out of the results.
This promotes Leopard team-mate David Almansa to a maiden grand prix podium, while the final points-paying position goes to Guido Pini, who was originally 16th at the chequered flag.
The Leopard team has a right to appeal this decision. It is unclear if it will do so.
The Moto3 race at Sepang was run over just 10 laps following a serious incident on the sighting lap between Noah Dettwiler and world champion Jose Antonio Rueda.
Both riders have since undergone surgery on their injuries but are now out of danger, with Dettwiler set to return home to Switzerland soon.
This is the second high-profile disqualification in the lower categories of the MotoGP World Championship in recent weeks, after Manu Gonzalez had a second-place finish at the Indonesian Grand Prix stripped from him due to a “non-homologated software”.
His Intact GP team revealed this was down to a “transmission error in the last firmware update, in which only one parameter was updated.”
This has had huge ramifications on the Moto2 title fight, as it cut Gonzalez’s lead down to nine points at the time, with the Spaniard now trailing in the standings coming into the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Adrian Fernandez’s disqualification will have no ramifications on the outcome of the Moto3 world title battle, which was already decided in Rueda’s favour.
In this article
