This weekend, the FIM MotoGP World Championship visited the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas for round 4 of the 2022 season. Additionally, eight-time world champion Marc Márquez was back after missing the final lap to recovering from his big crash during the Indonesian Grand Prix warm-up. Márquez has won seven of the eight MotoGP to Austin entries to date. Even so, today’s Grand Prix of the Americas will have a new winner.
In qualifying, Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martín beat Ducati factory racer Jack Miller to hit the three-millisecond mark. The Ducati bikes will finish the session with fifth place on the grid. Defending world champion Fabio Quartararo was the first non-Ducati racer to finish sixth on his Yamaha. Marc Márquez took his Honda to 9th place with two Suzukis factories ahead of him.
Miller beat Martín for the COTA’s hilltop first corner shot at the start of the race. The race would quickly develop into a head-to-head battle between the two riders as they were chased by Gresini’s Enea Bastianini, another Ducati satellite. Meanwhile, Marc Márquez was the last man to take the wheel at the first corner after a disastrously bad start.
Suzuki’s Álex Rins was the only rider to challenge the leading Ducati 5 brigade. Rins methodically chose her way past the Italian bikes to advance to the podium position. He will use COTA’s longest straight corners to negate Ducati’s straight line advantage and maneuver around his opponents.
Martín would sink to eighth place throughout the race, opening the door for Bastianini to fight for the win. Five more rounds, Bastianini will attack. Gresini’s rider edged his factory counterpart down a long back to take the lead. Enea Bastianini won’t look back and won the Grand Prix of the Americas, his second win of the season. Rins finished second, and Miller finished third.
Marc Márquez had a truly brilliant dribble, breaking through the field in sixth place. He went at a consistent pace, and at some points overtook the race leaders. While he quickly worked his way into the lower ranks, Márquez spent the final rounds battling Quartararo to maintain his spot.
Gresini’s Enea Bastianini leads the World Drivers Championship by five points ahead of Álex Rins. MotoGP will be back in two weeks for the Portuguese Grand Prix.
