- Season-best finish: Cormac Buchanan claimed 13th place at the German Moto3 Grand Prix, his strongest result of the 2026 season.
- Encouraging pace: The Kiwi ran inside the top 10 throughout practice and secured his best qualifying result of the year with 11th on the grid.
- Confidence restored: After an injury-hit start to the season, Buchanan heads into the summer break believing podium finishes are within reach.
Cormac Buchanan produced his strongest Moto3 World Championship performance of the season at Germany’s Sachsenring, giving the young Kiwi a timely confidence boost ahead of the mid-season break.
Kiwi Moto3 rider Cormac Buchanan will head into the mid-season break with renewed confidence after producing his strongest performance of the 2026 World Championship season at Germany’s Sachsenring circuit recently.
The Southlander finished 13th in the Moto3 race, adding valuable championship points after a weekend that saw him consistently running inside the top 10 and secure his best qualifying result of the year.
After an injury-disrupted start to the season, Buchanan said the result was an important confidence boost.
“Overall, the weekend was extremely positive and a good confidence booster. Top 10 in pretty much every session and fighting for those top places was nice again,” Buchanan said.
“It’s been a really rough start to the year with the injury, which is still not anywhere near 100 per cent, so it’s been frustrating at times not to be able to show my full potential. I’m glad we could show something this weekend.”
Buchanan showed encouraging pace from the opening practice sessions, finishing ninth in FP1 and eighth in practice to earn direct progression into Q2. He then qualified 11th on the grid—his best dry qualifying performance of the season—and just half a second off pole position.
A strong start to Sunday’s race saw the Code Motorsports rider running inside the top 10 before tyre wear began to affect his pace.
“If we can find those two or three tenths, we’ll be able to propel ourselves into that podium fight, which is obviously where we want to be.”
Rather than risk crashing while battling for a handful of extra positions, Buchanan elected to bank the points.
“I definitely think it was a wise decision on my part. I felt like I was on my limit. It wasn’t so much with the pace, it was more that to run that pace I felt like I was risking a crash, especially with the state the tyre was in,” he explained.
Despite settling for 13th, Buchanan believes the weekend confirmed both he and the team have the pace to fight much further up the order once they unlock more performance from the medium rear tyre.
“If we can find those two or three tenths, we’ll be able to propel ourselves into that podium fight, which is obviously where we want to be.”
Moto3 now pauses for a three-week summer break before returning at Silverstone for the Qatar Airways Grand Prix of Great Britain from August 7-9.
Buchanan plans to use the break to continue recovering from injury and is confident his best performances are still to come.
“We’ve got 11 more races now to come and that’s 11 more chances to prove what we did this weekend and even more.
“Silverstone is a place I love and the next stop at Aragon is also one of my favourite circuits, so I think we’ll be able to put ourselves in a strong position in the second half of the season. I know the best is yet to come and it’s not far away.”
