Another familiar order of the three best at the end of the first race of the weekend of the Grand Prix of the MotoGP Americas in Austin, but a completely eventful route to this result leaves some runners and teams with grimace reasons while others smile. Here is our choice of stars and flops.
Winner: Alex Marquez
This second place was one of the best rides of Alex Marquez’s MotoGP career, since it is a song that he really had trouble doing all kinds of impression in the past.
It rolls both quickly quickly and runs perfectly, two things that were not the case in 2020-2024.
On Sunday will be another big test to pass, but so far it has been an inaccessible campaign.
Losing: Joan Mir
Joan Mir was naturally frustrated by Honda’s top speed after the sprint – it cannot be fun to be engulfed by a KTM on the right, then losing laptop computer – but even if Honda must prove that it can repair this without creating other weaknesses, he must prove that he can really be linked to the end of the races.
A large part of the reasons for which he was fighting in front of the KTMS and Hondas colleagues and chasing after a Yamaha is that he crashed in qualification. And seventh in the sprint, although nothing that will transform the CV of a MotoGP world champion, is a good thrown result – with an accident on the same turn at 15 years as in qualifying!
Mir admitted that it was his mistake, but said that he had to risk “a little more than the others” on the forehead to compensate for the right speed deficit.
Maybe yes, but Honda must wish to recalibrate its risk / reward assessments.
Winner: Marc Marquez
Marc Marquez was very close to rewrite the book during this league battle at the start of the season when he slipped around 17 – especially since, by the admission of Ducati, the teammate Pecco Bagnaia, an accident would have meant that Bagnaia Claque in Marquez.
Does Bagnaia have just made a pivot breakthrough? Look at Simon Patterson’s point of view on Patreon in his Last exclusive video Paddock Insight For the club members of the race
The fact that this has been avoided already made him a kind of winner – and from there, he had enough control to adapt to the sprint track conditions which surprised the three finish of podium (apparently a consequence of a large swing temperature compared to qualification).
Brother Alex also admitted that Marc had a few tenths of second per turn in his pocket – but even riding like that, Cota can clearly force an error.
Loser: ktm
The KTM RC16 temporarily puts itself in the conversations “Worse bike on the grid”. This is probably not the case, but it seems only limited in the hands of what should be the deepest range of MotoGP.
The four complained of vibrations of a variable nature after the sprint. For Maverick Vinales, it was something extraordinary – and end of race – but for others, it looked like the extension of the recurring KTM problem (but not the only one, because the responses of rival runners today have also indicated).
“Always more or less when I come here to talk about problems, I’m talking about vibrations,” said Pedro Acosta after finishing seventh. “It’s already a subject every time I enter the box.” KTM must find a solution, he said, because it is “already a year like this”.
This seems at least eminently repairable, and Acosta believes that the bike is a considerable upgrade – anyway, anyway – on a tour, which suggests more potential than last year. Right now, however, the four runners are only hanging on.
Winner: Fabio Quartararo
This is why they pay him the big dollars.
It was the third observation of “Rider franchise” Fabio Quartararo in 2025 – the first was throughout the Sepang test, the second was Friday in Termas of Rio Honda.
But this is more precious than one or the other of them, even if basic irritation with where the Yamaha M1 is at the moment is clear.
Quartararo had a wild race and attributes this to the fact that the M1 is still too skin, that is to say that it does not obtain any help from the back of the bike while decelerating with a lean angle.
Maybe it is fourth with a perfect race, but sixth behind a Ducati 1-2-3-4-5 is a gift for a project that fell off the door in 2025.
Winner: Ai Ogura
“I think that Prilia is strong in this circuit, but it was more from Maverick, I suppose!” So the runners of Aprilia need to wake up. Include me, of course! “
Ai Ogura has sprinkled in a little endearing self-depreciation in its post-print assessment, but in truth, it was another very good day, which is becoming more and more the norm in its young MotoGP career.
A training accident distorted his confidence, but the race for ninth place in the sprint did not show it – and although the real level of the bicycle remains a little an enigma, Ogura shows that he is a rider on which we can count.
Loser: Marco Bezzecchi
Perhaps no rider on the MotoGP grid had such an important atmosphere of the pre-season now as Marco Bezzecchi-and it is not as if there were no other strong candidates.
As referenced above, last year in Cota, the Aprilia RS-GP looked like the best bicycle in the history of the concept of bikes in the hands of vinales. Vinales left and Jorge Martin is injured, so the male stops now with Bezzecchi to maintain the honor of Aprilia here, and so far, he simply has not produced.
Bezzecchi put a large part of this to a first mechanical practice responsible for problems (which also included a bad crash). “We are trying to solve everything but we are quite far from where we want to be with the frame,” he said.
But only one wet The session being a radiation should not set fire to your whole weekend. Ogura, a recruit, probably had an FP1 just as a bad, moving around nine seconds from the rhythm, and he recovered better.
Winner: Luca Marini
Like the KTM runners, Luca Marini stressed “a strange vibration that bothers us a little” – which he considers equipped with three to four tenths per turn in the sprint, and is a recurring problem.
But Marini’s day was considerably more positive, even if he could not completely remove Acosta for seventh at the end.
Marini is in a contractual year and seemed a third best contingent of the Honda behind Mir and Johann Zarco so far on the new RC213V, but said something had clicked late.
Mir surely had something more in the sprint, but, as he does so often, does not end. Marini did it – he almost always does it.
Loser: VR46
Is the fourth and fifth a bad result? Not … really, no. But when Alex Marquez sucks the podiums for Gresini, you cannot help but feel that the other satellite team Ducati underperform – and a large part of this could be that his runners continue to trip.
This was the case in Termas and again here. Franco Morbidelli was limited to the vibrations, so he ended the race “certainly not really happy”, but while Fabio Di Giannantonio was in better shape, as in Termas, came out of a second best best in a first battle with Morbidelli, who conditioned his whole race.
Di Giannantonio says he must just start better because “when you want to fight with Pecco, Alex and Marc when you have to be there already, you cannot do the shopping. It’s spectacular but it is not useful for the end result. So I was a little angry on this subject”.
So the two frustrated. And for a good reason – they set up good points, but there is no good reason for them not in this mixture at the front.
Winner: Fermin Aldeguer
FERMIN Aldeguer made a good qualification mess, but was completely flawless to find yourself at the back of the sprint Pack from the start – a consequence of finding yourself outside a situation with three Into caused by certain robust fights above between Morbidelli and Di Giannantonio.
He has traveled a very good race from the 20th to 11th 11th, his best in MotoGP so far, even if it has not been rewarded in terms of points.
“I think we have taken a big step today,” he said. This seems a little fragmentary and with many variations in session per session, but, yes, progress is clearly in progress.
