Deep in the heart of Texas, Marquez makes his mark

After mixed weather over the course of the weekend, the sun came out and track temperatures rose to 35 degrees in time for the start of the MotoGP™ race.

Andrea Dovizioso led the field into turn one, with Marquez happy to let the Ducati GP15 open up a 0.5s lead during the opening couple of laps. Marquez waited until the 5th lap to make his move and went on to open up a five-second lead, before relaxing towards the end of the race to take a commanding win.

Dovizioso

No one had an answer to the young Spaniards pace as he controlled the race expertly from the front: “I decided to keep calm in the early laps to try to understand the situation well, and when I started to find a feeling similar to practice, I decided to push the pace a bit. That was when I was able to open up a gap.”

A brilliant battle for second then ensued between the Italians Valentino Rossi and Dovizioso, with the riders almost colliding through turn 12. “The Doctor” had to use all of his skill and experience to hold off the charge of the Ducati as Dovizioso tried to make his power advantage count down the 1.2 km straight at CoTA.

He would eventually lose out to Dovizioso due to a tyre issue, although Rossi maintained his lead in the Championship standings as he finished 3rd: “I’m happy about the weekend, because getting onto the podium is a good objective when coming here. On paper this track is the worst for our bike. I am satisfied about the weekend as a whole because we were always in the top 4-5 and we also weren‘t so bad on the wet. For it to be perfect I would have had to beat Dovizioso, but unfortunately he was a bit faster. I didn‘t have a chance to try, also because after six or seven laps of pushing a lot, I had to ride very smooth. For some reason our bike destroyed the front tyre.”

Rossi went on to discuss that moment with Dovizioso at turn 12: “Dovi said to me that we risked a lot overtaking in turn 12. From the bike I didn‘t feel it and I thought we had some margin. We passed each other very closely, but there was enough space.”

Dovizioso takes second place at CoTA

Dovizioso made it two podiums in a row as he snatched 2^nd from Rossi’s grasp, but was unable to challenge the dominance of Marquez: “It was really special to get the podium as it confirmed our pace at a completely different track. It was a really strange race, as you have to manage the tyres, the speed and the energy, and it was very difficult but I managed it in a perfect way, Marc was just on a different level.”

His verdict on the incident with Rossi: “I thought that we would both crash, as he cut the line too much and I couldn’t reduce speed quick enough, it was very close, but that’s racing.”

Rossi’s teammate Jorge Lorenzo left it late, overtaking the Ducati GP15 of Andrea Iannone with only 3 laps to go to snatch 4th place from the Italian: “We finished the race in the best way possible given the circumstances.” He also mentioned how he suffered against the Ducati’s straight line speed: “I wasn‘t fit and the bike also needed some extra performance on some areas of the track, especially on the straight I lost a lot.”

Petrucci & Iannone

Monster Tech 3 Yamaha’s Bradley Smith was the leading Satellite rider as he ended up in 6th after battling at the front during the early part of the race: “I began with a strong start and to jump from 10th up to 4th was pretty awesome. The risk I took to go around the outside of the pack at turn one paid off. I have been studying previous races and saw how other riders got pinched on the inside, so I decided to gamble and go around the outside. After that, I was running comfortably with the leaders for the first five laps, but when Marc went past Andrea I was just missing that extra bit of pace.”

CWM LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow recovered from a poor start that saw him down in 10^th on the opening lap to finish in 7^th, six-seconds behind his compatriot Smith: “In the race itself we had some problems, I got caught up in the crash on the first lap and lost nearly five seconds in one lap and from that point it was very difficult to catch up. The whole CWM LCR Honda team need to regroup now and come back to the next race stronger as we were too far behind the winner today.”

Aleix Espargaro was a further 2 seconds back in 8th, as he finished 19 seconds ahead of his rookie teammate Maverick Viñales on the second Team Suzuki Ecstar GSX-RR in 9^th.

Pramac Racing’s Danilo Petrucci completed the top ten, ahead of the Repsol Honda of Hiroshi Aoyama and the leading Open class bike of Hector Barbera on the Avintia Ducati.

Nicky Hayden won the battle of the Open class Honda’s in front of his home crowd, claiming 13^th place in his 200^th MotoGP™ race after an exciting fight with the CWM LCR RC213V-RS of Jack Miller (14^th), and Alvaro Bautista (15^th) on the Factory Aprilia Racing Team Gresini.

Scott Redding earlier crashed on the very first lap after outbreaking himseld at turn 11 and taking out Pol Espargaro in the process, much to the chagrin of the Spanish rider, with Abraham, Melandri, Hernandez, Di Meglio and Bradl also failing to finish the race.

MOTO GP

21 laps = 115.773 km

1             M MARQUEZ      SPA        HON      43m47.150s

2             A DOVIZIOSO    ITA        DUC       2.354s

3             V ROSSI               ITA        YAM      3.120s

4             J LORENZO        SPA        YAM      6.682s

5             A IANNONE         ITA        DUC       7.584s

6             B SMITH              GBR       YAM      10.557s

7             C CRUTCHLOW  GBR       HON      16.967s

8             A ESPARGARO    SPA        SUZ       19.025s

9             M VIÑALES         SPA        SUZ       38.570s

10           D PETRUCCI       ITA        DUC       41.796s

11           H AOYAMA         JPN        HON       47.199s

12           H BARBERA         SPA       DUC       47.339s

13           N HAYDEN           USA       HON       56.484s

14           J MILLER           AUS       HON       56.731s

15           A BAUTISTA        SPA       APR         57.372s

16           E LAVERTY          IRL        HON       58.898s

17           L BAZ                 FRA       YAM      1m08.787s

18           A DE ANGELIS     RSM       ART        1m22.236s

DNF

K ABRAHAM (CZE, HON), M MELANDRI (ITA, APR), Y HERNANDEZ (COL, DUC), M DI MEGLIO (FRA, DUC), S REDDING (GBR, HON), S BRADL (GER, YAM), P ESPARGARO (SPA, YAM)

POLE POSITION

M MARQUEZ 2m02.135s

FASTEST LAP

A IANNONE 2m04.251s

RIDER STANDING AFTER 2 OF 18 ROUNDS
1 V ROSSI 41, 2 A DOVIZIOSO 40, 3 M MARQUEZ 36, 4 A IANNONE 27, 5 J LORENZO 26, 6 B SMITH 18, 7 C CRUTCHLOW 18, 8 A ESPARGARO 13, 9 D PEDROSA 10, 10 D PETRUCCI 10

Moto2

19 laps = 104.747 km

1              S LOWES                GBR       SPE         41m45.565s

2              J ZARCO                 FRA        KAL        +1.999s

3              A RINS                    SPA        KAL        +4.622s

4              T RABAT                  SPA        KAL        +8.975s

5              F MORBIDELLI      ITA         KAL        +12.976s

6              H SYAHRIN            MAL       KAL        +14.168s

7              A WEST                AUS       SPE         +17.271s

8              M KALLIO              FIN         KAL        +17.513s

9              J SIMON                SPA        SPE         +17.689s

10           T NAKAGAMI        JPN        KAL        +17.764s

11           S CORSI                   ITA         KAL        +17.982s

12           T LUTHI                  SWI        KAL        +24.824s

13           M SCHROTTER     GER        TEC         +26.016s

14           S CORTESE            GER        KAL        +27.456s

15           A MARQUEZ          SPA        KAL        +28.568s

16           J FOLGER              GER        KAL        +29.889s

17           R CARDUS             SPA        TEC         +36.405s

18           D AEGERTER         SWI        KAL        +38.693s

19           A SHAH                   MAL       KAL        +40.581s

20           R MULHAUSER    SWI        KAL        +41.504s

21           R KRUMMENACHE  SWI        KAL        +50.471s

22           L ROSSI               FRA        TEC         +1m08.825s

23           T WAROKORN       THA        KAL        +1m10.990s

24           J RAFFIN              SWI        KAL        +1m11.138s

25           F ALT                  GER        SUT        +1m19.442s

26           L BALDASSARRI    ITA         KAL        +1m25.405s

27           L SALOM              SPA        KAL        +1m32.876s

Sam Lowes Moto2

DNF

X SIMEON (BEL, KAL), Z ZAIDI (MAL, SUT)

POLE POSITION

X SIMEON 2m09.888s

FASTEST LAP

S LOWES 2m10.578s

RIDER STANDINGS AFTER 2 of 18 ROUNDS
1 A RINS 29, 2 J ZARCO 28, 3 J FOLGER 25, 4 S LOWES 25, 5 F MORBIDELLI 22, 6 X SIMEON 20, 7 T LUTHI 20, 8 M KALLIO 18, 9 H SYAHRIN 14, 10 T RABAT 13

Aussie Ant West takes a tumble but finished seven overall

MOTO 3

18 laps = 99.234 km

1             D KENT              GBR       HON      41m32.287s

2             F QUARTARARO   FRA        HON      +8.532s

3             E VAZQUEZ         SPA        HON      +8.652s

4             E BASTIANINI      ITA         HON      +8.811s

5             B BINDER           RSA        KTM       +9.556s

6             J MCPHEE           GBR       HOA       +13.869s

7             A LOCATELLI       ITA        HON      +20.442s

8             R FENATI             ITA        KTM       +20.611s

9             I VIÑALES            SPA       HUS       +20.863s

10           K HANIKA            CZE        KTM       +20.913s

11           J KORNFEIL         CZE        KTM       +21.249s

12           A MIGNO            ITA         KTM       +23.725s

13           P OETTL             GER        KTM       +32.218s

14           N AJO                 FIN         KTM       +36.702s

15           M FERRARI         ITA         MAH      +37.283s

16           A MASBOU          FRA        HON      +47.027s

17           M HERRERA         SPA        HUS       +59.257s

18           R GARDNER       AUS       MAH      +1’03.748s

19           G RODRIGO        ARG       KTM       +1m04.611s

20           Z KHAIRUDDIN    MAL       KTM       +1m16.968s

21           A TONUCCI         ITA        MAH      +1m27.397s

22           A CARRASCO      SPA        KTM       +1m40.409s

23           N ANTONELLI      ITA          HON      +1m43.841s

24           S MANZI            ITA         MAH      +1m46.105s

25           L LOI                BEL         HON      +1 lap

Quatararo, Kent (who won by a whopping 8.5 seconds) & Varquez – Moto3

DNF

T SUZUKI (JPN, MAH), M OLIVEIRA (POR, KTM), F BAGNAIA (ITA, MAH), J NAVARRO (SPA, HONDA), J MARTIN (SPA, MAH), H ONO (JPN, HON), J DANILO (FRA, HON), D BINDER (RSA, MAH), J GUEVARA (SPA, MAH)

POLE POSITION

D KENT 2m15.344s

FASTEST LAP

M OLIVEIRA 2m17.559

RIDER STANDING AFTER 2 of 18 ROUNDS
1 D KENT 41, 2 E BASTIANINI 33, 3 F QUARTARARO 29, 4 E VAZQUEZ 29, 5 A MASBOU 25, 6 J MCPHEE 21, 7 B BINDER 17, 8 I VIÑALES 17, 9 A LOCATELLI 14, 10 K HANIKA 9

Miller with Moto3 mates, Hanika and Binder