As Motorsport.com España reports, Pramac is demanding answers after Izan Guevara saw his title bid dealt a severe blow with a late retirement in the Moto2 race in Qatar. The Italian squad arrived at Losail to contest the intermediate class round while the factory Yamaha team stayed home, keeping their focus entirely on fighting for the championship against Manu González.
That decision turned into a nightmare when Guevara's machine ground to a halt past the race distance halfway point. Up until Sunday, the Spanish rider was the only competitor in the field to finish and score points in every single round of the season. His strong practice pace—third on Friday and second on Saturday—vanished in qualifying when he placed seventh and dropped to tenth on the grid due to a penalty. He spent the race fighting just to stay inside the top ten before the engine let go, though he managed to restart it and crawl back to the pitlane.
Team manager Gino Borsoi was adamant that the issue stemmed from the power unit opened in Sepang, pointing out that they had already flagged a lack of straight-line speed since Malaysia. Despite raising the concern with championship organizers ahead of the race, checks by officials cleared the unit. "Evidently now we have to look at the data, but it seems to be an engine problem," Borsoi said to DAZN, noting they suffered from a clear speed deficit all weekend.
Head of the Moto2 squad Alex de Angelis echoed those frustrations in a post-race team statement, explaining that telemetry showed Guevara losing ground on the straights and struggling to change gears before the breakdown. Meanwhile, the championship leader Manu González managed only a sixth-place finish after struggling with front-end feel, though that result still allowed him to stretch his advantage to 13.5 points. Despite the disaster, Guevara remained defiant about the title fight. "Nothing is decided. We have to keep calm, keep believing in our potential and give it everything in the two remaining rounds," he said.
Moto2
