Without the sheriff of Austin on track – seven-time COTA winner Marc Marquez watched the race again from the sofa with his right thumb not yet recovered – the spotlight at the GP of the Americas went to him, oh surprise , a secondary actor like Ãlex Rins and a motorcycle that seemed incapable like the Honda. The Barcelona pilot, in his third GP with the LCR Honda satellite, returned the joy with an incontestable triumph to the winged brand, which had not tasted victory for a year and a half (since Misano, in October from 2021, with Márquez).
The triumph of Rins with a satellite Honda (something that had not happened since 2018 with Crutchlow) opened a question mark in the sky of Texas: what could Marc Márquez have done in Saturday’s Sprint and in the long race, at his fetish circuit , without the penalty of the double long-lap, provisionally suspended by the MotoGP Court of Appeal? We will remain with the doubt.
On the other hand, there was no doubting the good performance of the Honda on a track that looked like fertile ground for the devilish speed of Bagnaia’s Ducati, as it demonstrated in the S print.
Starting from pole, Bagnaia, with Rins and Marini at his side, kept his first position closing the first corner on the climb, with the Barcelona driver on his back. It was an advance in the fight, which from the start was left without the contest of two possible candidates, Jorge MartÃn and Àlex Márquez, on the ground at bend 3. The Madrid native lost control of the Ducati and attacked the Catalan. Two less rivals for Pecco. That there were three, with the next fall of Aleix Espargaró at turn 12. In other words, in the first lap, three out of play; a preview of the race for survival that ended up being Austin with only 13 drivers seeing the checkered flag.
Despite the good pace he set, Bagnaia could not get away from a solid Rins who added several better laps, and he distanced himself from a boisterous Miller, from 10th on the grid to 3rd.
Interestingly, in the first quarter of the test, four different manufacturers were in the lead (Ducati, Honda, KTM and Yamaha), breaking the overwhelming Italian hegemony.
A variety that Miller threw to the ground with his fall into the gravel on lap 7, and left Quartararo in the podium position, but in the next turn, Bagnaia also fell victim to gravity and the pressure it subjected him to Rins, which led him to make an unexpected mistake. He lost traction on the rear wheel going too wide into Turn 3. For the second race in a row, the champion went down in the long race and was left without a round weekend and without the lead, which would remain in the hands of Bezzecchi if held on
The champion’s stumble left Rins alone in the lead with a 2-second lead over Quartararo, who once again experienced the sensation of the hunter. However, the chase changed to greyhounds with 8 laps to go. Luca Marini grew tired of Quartararo’s insufficient pace, as the Honda slipped away from him (by 2.2s), and took over from the French Yamaha rider. Rins was not alarmed. It was his day and he hit the gas to open a little more distance, to 2.5s. The advantage took him to 3.1 seconds in the last lap, in which the victory, the sixth in the queen category, was no longer in danger. And he warns that Rins is the driver who has won the most races in the last six: in Australia and in Valencia, last year, and in Austin, yesterday.
