Senna Agius leads the Australians on Sunday at Phillip Island

The 19-year-old from Camden in New South Wales rode a brilliant race after starting 13th on the Liqui Moly Husqvarna Intact GP Kalex. After picking his way forward on the opening lap and taking advantage of a couple of fallen riders on the opening lap, he settled into the top eight and just kept moving forward.

With three laps to go he looked like he was heading for fourth place, having just passed championship leader Ai Ogura, but when third-placed Alonso Lopez dropped his Beta Tools SpeedUp Boscoscuro, Agius could hardly believe that he had third in his pocket, provided he could complete the last three laps without incident.

That he did, finishing 7.228s behind winner Fermin Aldeguer, to take his best result of the season. Agius is now in 15th place in the Moto2™ points, and looks likely to take out rookie of the year honours.

Jack Miller made a strong start in the MotoGP™ race, in his last ride for KTM on home soil but found Alex Marquez in his way at the first corner (“He tried to ruin my home race, again!) Miller found himself in last place but pushed on, and for much of the race found himself in a battle with almost every other brand of motorcycle on the track; Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha), Raul Fernandez (Aprilia), 2023 winner Johann Zarco (Honda) and Alex Rins (Yamaha). The Queenslander finished in 11th place.

Earlier in the day in Moto3™, Joel Kelso looked very solid early in the race, and even led multiple times in the opening laps. But he was bumped back to eighth on lap 8 and then further back after another skirmish, falling to 17th. The Darwin rider fought back, moving up to 11th at the flag.

Jacob Roulstone fought hard on the Red Bull GasGas, working his way up to 10th (and ahead of Kelso) at one point in the race, but dropped back to 13th at the chequered flag.

In the third and final race for the bLU cRU Oceania Junior Cup riders Ethan Johnson held on to beat Hunter Corney and Nikolas Lazos to take the victory.