MotoGP: Austin, Wrap-up

After two weeks of trash talk and debate about the proceedings at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit in Argentina, action resumed this weekend at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas. And all eyes were on just one man - Marc Marquez. Primarily to see if he could register his 6th COTA win in a row and also because of the negative attention from his conduct at the previous MotoGP outing. The weekend started with a notification from the FIM MotoGP Stewards Panel (who decide on the penalties for rule infringements) informing all riders and teams that they would be taking a stricter approach towards infringements of the regulations and imposing penalties starting from this (Austin) Grand Prix. To watch a flying lap of the Circuit of the Americas click here.

Warm up sessions and Qualifying
At the start of the weekend, the riders had other things to worry about than trying to prevent the Repsol Honda rider from running away at the front. There were some sections on the track that were very bumpy and the COTA officials decided on trying to level the surface with leveling trucks before the event, but with little success. The bumps remained, and the process left a lot of dust and surface debris on the track which made for even trickier conditions. Jack Miller had his flyscreen damaged with flying debris while other riders were finding it hard to see through the clouds of dust.

Despite forecasts of rain for Qualifying, the weather held up and as expected, Marc Marquez set the fastest time of the day in Q2. But on one of his out laps, he also managed to get in the way of Vinales who was on a flyer and this brought him under the Stewards Panel’s scrutiny again. He was handed a three place grid penalty post qualifying (his fourth in two races) and had to start the race from the second row. Vinales started from first, Iannone was second and Zarco was third on the grid. Giving Marquez (fourth) company in the second row were Rossi in fifth and Lorenzo in sixth place on the factory Ducati.

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The Race
Compared to the almost non-stop mayhem in Argentina, the Austin GP didn’t pack in much action. The prize for standout performance of the day went to Marc Marquez for utterly destroying the field at one of his favourite tracks. He passed Andrea Iannone for the lead at the end of the back straight on the first lap and despite the latter trying a desperate dive down the inside a lap later, he practically led from start to finish. In fact, he increased his lead practically every lap all the way till the penultimate lap by when he had amassed a whopping 7.5-second lead over Maverick Vinales in second.

Behind him too, the action was quite stretched out with Maverick gapping Iannone by a second and Rossi trailing Iannone by four seconds. Andrea Dovizioso and Johann Zarco were locked in a battle for the fifth spot which the Ducati rider won, while Dani managed to bring home his Repsol Honda in seventh position. Behind them, Tito Rabat and Jack Miller also had an exciting last lap battle which the Spaniard eventually won. Aleix Espargaro rounded off the top ten with a strong ride on the factory Aprilia, clawing his way up into the top ten after starting from a lowly 21st. To watch the highlights of the race click here.

Riders Reactions
Marc Marquez
The world champion said that “special motivation” caused him to adopt a different strategy to Sunday’s race. Where he planned to ride hard right from the get go and gap the field in a bid to answer the harsh criticism his all-or-nothing attitude in the Argentina race brought him. The penalty in qualifying and having to start from fourth place made him doubt this approach, but when he found himself in front at the end of the first lap, he decided to go for it. While it’s not a strategy he prefers because he doesn't like to lead from the front, he said that this was the plan all along and even in the morning warm up session he tried a simulation run, pushing extra hard on new tyres to see if he had the pace to gap the field. He added that on the Monday after the race in Argentina, he spent some time analysing where things went wrong and what to change and also what he was doing right. Once this was clear, his mind was at ease and he focused all his energy in riding for the win in Austin. To watch Marc Marquez's post race interview click here.

Maverick Vinales
The Spaniard had his smile back and was really happy with the performance he managed to extract from his factory Yamaha. He said that there is still some more ground to cover before he is completely happy with the bike, but he is now convinced that they are better than where they were a year ago. Overall, he was happy that he was finally feeling good on the Yamaha again.

Andrea Iannone
Iannone really enjoyed his small battle with Marquez on the opening lap of the race where he led for a few corners and even managed to put a passing manoeuvre on the Repsol Honda rider a couple of laps later, but ran wide. When Vinales overtook him for second place, he tried to match the pace of the Yamaha but just couldn't close the gap even though he managed to stay in sight of Maverick till the end of the race. Iannone will also be happy to have beaten his teammate Alex Rins on pace this weekend as despite being the senior rider, it's been his younger teammate who’s been getting the attention with the first podium of the year for Suzuki in Argentina.

Valentino Rossi
Rossi was pleased with his performance on the M1 Yamaha in Austin but just wished that he managed to keep up with Iannone to fight for the podium. He said that he was expecting Marquez and Vinales to pull away, but due to an overheating front tyre, he was not able to ride fast enough even to catch Iannone.

Andrea Dovizioso
The new championship leader said that this race was a little bitter sweet for him and while he was happy to be leading the championship into the first European rounds, his Ducati’s performance at Austin proved to him that the bike is still not quite suited for some tracks. He also feels that the Honda looks more competitive than last year and this will make winning the championship even more difficult.