Three Sprints and two have been for Pecco Bagnaia. The Italian rider with Ducati re-imposes his champion status and already has a glimpse of the World Championship lead, which Marco Bezzecchi (6th) retains by a single point, awaiting the long race this Sunday (9:00 p.m.), in which the one from Turin will once again be the favorite for victory.
On this occasion, the short Saturday race format was a 10-lap duel on the Circuit of the Americas. Also in Texas, under a sun of justice (31ºC), whoever draws before is who wins. “Pecco is one step ahead of everyone, I don’t know if he will get away”, predicted Àlex Márquez, one of the only four drivers who had repeated points in the first two Sprints (with MartÃn, Viñales and Bagnaia). Everyone knew about the devilish speed of the champion with his red Ducati, in addition, with the advantage of starting at the top of the grid.
Rins knew it too, but the Barcelonan from Honda wanted to mess it up, after placing 2nd in the qualifying session, on a track where he is good at (victory in 2019 and second last year). Ãlex managed to take first at the start but he went too wide, and again in the first corners, but Bagnaia imposed the speed of his Desmosedici on the straight to recover his position.
The fight between the Honda and the Ducati frustrated in the second lap when the Barcelonan slipped into turn 12, dropped to third place, the Italian took off forever and Ãlex handed over the chasing baton to Aleix Espargaró, 4 Italian tenths. Behind the man from Granoller, Rins, MartÃn –who had started 12th– and Quartararo, later passed by Àlex Márquez, who had been delayed at the start but in four laps linked up with the noble group.
The Devil is not giving one and he crashed when he was running sixth following Márquez, increasingly solid. And in front, Bagnaia was extending his advantage lap by lap over an Espargaró who could not keep up with the Ducati, and who saw how a boisterous Rins was worrying him for the second position on the podium. The Honda rider snatched the position from the Aprilia rider with four laps to go, just as Àlex Márquez crashed in the delicate turn 12. The number of chosen points scoring in the Sprint was reduced to just two, because Viñales was far behind (10 .º).
The fight for the two drawers of the podium was a matter of three Spaniards: Rins had the second secured with 1.6 over MartÃn and Aleix, two friends who were fighting for the third place in the last two laps. In the last turn, Espargaró tried looking for all the holes for the man from Madrid, at turn 19 he overtook him, but he went wide and MartÃn held on in front of him to add his second podium in the Sprint.
