The battle for the 2026 FIM Yamaha R3 BLU CRU World Cup intensified in Race 1 at the Cremona Circuit Italy, with Aymon Bocanegra of Brazil taking victory while Japan’s Riichi Takahira closed the gap to the championship leader with a stunning third place.
Bocanegra, who hasn’t won since the opening round of the season at Balaton Park, kept his title hopes alive, moving up to fourth in the standings with a clever and aggressive final lap. The Brazilian is now 25 points off the series lead with just three races remaining. Polesitter Hinata Okada (Japan) missed out on a debut victory taking second.
Third place for Takahira with series leader Xarly Mendez crossing the line seventh means just four points stand between the two ahead of the final three races, with Emanuele Pastore (Italy) holding on to third place despite crashing out of contention in the early stages.
Rintaro Takemoto (Japan) crossed the line fourth ahead of the USA’s Chris Clark, with Alessandro Binder, who had led on the penultimate lap, finishing sixth. Mendez was squeezed out twice on the final two laps ended up seventh ahead of a strong eighth for Nathan Bettencourt (USA). Angelo Mottola (Italy) was ninth ahead of series guest Valentin Knezovic (Australia).
With the grid for Sunday’s Race 2 set by the fastest laps from Race 1, Chris Clark will line up on pole ahead of Salvatore Germano with Bettencourt joining his fellow American on the front row in third. Championship leader Mendez will start ninth, with rival Takahira lining up 13th. The second race gets underway at 10:10 CEST on Sunday and can be watched live on the Yamaha Racing YouTube, here.
Aymon Bocanegra reflected on the hard-fought win, saying: “I am very happy for this result because I started in the scond group. The race was super difficult but lap by lap I made progress, I prepared my last lap quite well and was able to execute my strategy. I wanted to be quite aggressive on the last lap and it worked so I am very happy! Thank you so much to my team and Yamaha Brazil for the support.”
