MotoGP Austin results, Grand Prix - Dramatic beginning breeds tense ending

MotoGP arrives in the US this weekend for round three of the 2023 season with a renewed grid and a first-time championship leader in Marco Bezzecchi. Keep an eye on this page throughout the weekend for MotoGP Austin results.

Overview

Grand Prix - Rins takes victory as Bagnaia crashes out (again)

Sprint - Bagnaia dominates as Rins, Martin complete the podium

Qualifying - Bagnaia breaks lap record to deny Rins pole position

P2 - Jorge Martin puts himself fastest overnight as Ducati show strength in Texas

P1 - Luca Marini begins round three on top as Quartararo shows one-lap promise

Grand Prix

Round three of the 2023 MotoGP World Championship, the Grand Prix of the Americas at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, saw a dramatic race which was finally won by Alex Rins.

From pole position, Francesco Bagnaia made the holeshot narrowly ahead of Alex Rins, while Jack Miller made a strong start and was third by the end of the second sector of the first lap. By the end of it, Bagnaia led by over half-a-second, and the front three had a small gap over fourth-placed Fabio Quartararo.

After five laps, the race seemed to be between Bagnaia, Rins, and Miller. Bagnaia looked the most in-control, but the pace of the two behind him in the direction changes and entry to the tight corners was keeping them interested.

Jack Miller’s podium contention ended with his sixth crash of the weekend at turn seven on lap eight. That took some pressure off Rins, who in any case was fully-focused on Bagnaia, and elevated Quartararo into the podium positions.

Quartararo was elevated further when Bagnaia crashed out a lap after Miller. Bagnaia fell at turn two, losing the front over the bump in the middle of that corner, and that put Rins in the lead.

On lap 13, Marini passed Quartararo in the back straight. It was down to horsepower and acceleration, which are both strong points of the Ducati, and weak points of the Yamaha.

Marini immediately set on after Rins, and the Italian was able to get his deficit to the leader under two seconds, consistently, for the first time since Bagnaia crashed.
Rins was able to more or less respond to Marini’s pace, and even extended his gap out to 2.5 seconds on lap 15.

And that is more or less how it stayed, with Rins taking his third win in six races, and Honda’s first since the second Misano race of 2021, by 3.498 seconds over Luca Marini, who took his first MotoGP podium in second. Third place went to Fabio Quartararo, who took his and Yamaha's first podium since Malaysia 2022.

Maverick Vinales repeated his poor start from the Sprint race to mean his strong late pace was only good enough for fourth place, ahead of Miguel Oliveira who took his best finish of the season with fifth,

Marco Bezzecchi extended his championship lead to 11 points thanks to his sixth place and the crash of Bagnaia, while Johann Zarco took seventh. 

Franco Morbidelli was eighth, ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio and Augusto Fernandez, the #37 taking his first top 10 in MotoGP.

Full MotoGP Austin results from the Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas are below.

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | Grand Prix Results

Sprint

The clouds that had blanketed the Circuit of the Americas throughout Friday and into Saturday morning had disappeared to be replaced by intense sunshine in time for the third MotoGP Sprint of the 2023 season. Francesco Bagnaia started from pole position, having set a new all-time lap record for MotoGP at COTA in qualifying. Francesco Bagnaia won the Sprint, becoming the first two-time MotoGP Sprint winner.

Francesco Bagnaia made the holeshot from pole position. Both he and Alex Rins made great launches, but Rins’ inside lunge at turn one was countered by the Italian.

Despite Rins’ best efforts, Bagnaia led the opening laps. The Spaniard could turn well on the Honda, but he missed straight line speed and acceleration compared to the Ducati.

Rins then ran wide in turn 12 on lap two, which dropped him back to third place. It meant Bagnaia had a gap of 0.5 seconds behind him, and to COTA-hating Aleix Espargaro on the lead Aprilia.

By half-distance, the race was in Bagnaia’s hands, and the battle for second seemed to be between Espargaro and Rins, who had opposite motorcycles. Rins’ Honda was all on the front, whereas Espargaro had more balance, and therefore more traction. 

But, when Rins passed Espargaro for second on lap seven, it created a situation for Jorge Martin to come into the fight. Having passed Espargaro at turn seven, Rins out-braked himself in turn 11, and then turn 12. On the second occasion, he sucked in Espargaro, who ran wide, and lost out to the ill Martin. 

Martin had nothing for Rins, so his fight remained with Espargaro for third. The Aprilia rider was much better in the twisty parts of the lap than the Ducati-mounted Martin, but the #89 had superior performance on exit from the slow corners, meaning Espargaro was never really close enough to make any difference on the brakes.

Espargaro also seemed to be suffering with rear grip straight line, hard braking, which was an issue which appeared to plague Aprilia in 2022.

The #41 ended in fourth place, behind a dominant Bagnaia; a supremely impressive Rins who spent 10 laps battling both his rivals and his motorcycles; and a similarly impressive Martin, who spent 10 laps fighting both his rivals and his own physical condition. 

Behind Espargaro was Brad Binder, who took KTM’s best finish in a race scenario at COTA with fifth. The South African was ahead of the two VR46 Ducati riders, as Marco Bezzecchi led Luca Marini. The issue for both of them was the start, as they both ended the first lap outside the top 10, and had to recover to be in the top seven. For Bezzecchi, sixth was enough to maintain his position at the top of the Riders’ World Championship.

Then came Miguel Oliveira in eighth place on his return, while Jack Miller was ninth, and Maverick Vinales completed the top 10.

A crash for Fabio Quartararo at turn one was followed by a remount, but he could only salvage 19th.

Full MotoGP Austin results from the Sprint at the Circuit of the Americas are below.

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | Sprint Results

Qualifying

Despite overnight rain in Texas, the Circuit of the Americas was dry for MotoGP qualifying on Saturday morning. Pole position was secured by Francesco Bagnaia who will start from the front in both the Sprint and Grand Prix races.

Marco Bezzecchi set his best time early on in Q1, and no one got near it for 12 minutes. It looked as though the only fight was for second place, but Johann Zarco’s final attempt surpassed Bezzecchi’s best effort, and the Frenchman passed the Q2 - along with his fellow Ducati rider, Bezzecchi - at the cost of Joan Mir, who missed out and will start this weekend’s two races from 13th.

The early pace in Q2 was set by Francesco Bagnaia, although his 2:02.576 was almost 0.4 seconds slower than Jorge Martin’s fastest time in Friday practice. 

Bagnaia bettered his time to a 2:02.242 on his next lap, and that was matched - to the thousandth-of-a-second - by Alex Marquez only a few seconds after Bagnaia.

A provisional pole position lap for Alex Rins came among a myriad of yellow flags, none of which affected the #42. Jack Miller crashed first, then Jorge Martin, and then Alex Marquez.

Unfortunately for Rins and LCR Honda, Bagnaia’s final flying lap was ballistic, and he went sub-2:02 for the first time in MotoGP history at COTA to take his first pole position of the season.

Alex Rins’ lap was good enough for second place - still a fantastic result on a difficult Honda - while Luca Marini benefitted from some decent track position behind Bagnaia on his final lap to get himself onto the front row in third place.

Alex Marquez’ late crash cost him the front row, and he will start fourth, alongside Marco Bezzecchi, who at this point seems to have recovered a difficult weekend to start from the middle of row two in fifth. Aleix Espargaro completes the second row at his least favourite circuit in sixth place.

Fabio Quartararo confirmed that Yamaha has still not sorted its one-lap speed issues, as he qualified seventh, 0.857 seconds behind Bagnaia. He will start alongside Maverick Vinales (8th) and Johann Zarco (9th) on row three; while the KTM duo of Jack Miller (10th) and Brad Binder (11th) will have Jorge Martin (12th) alongside them on the fourth row of the grid.

For Martin, his late crash was his second of Q2, and for Jack Miller, there were also two crashes in Q2, taking his total for the weekend to five.

Full MotoGP Austin results from qualifying at the Circuit of the Americas are below.

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | Qualifying Results

P2

Rain disrupted the Moto2 practice which preceded the second MotoGP session of the weekend in Texas. However, the track was never truly wet, and so when the rain stopped with some minutes to go in the Moto2 session, the track was in a more or less ideal condition. It stayed that way for the start of MotoGP P2, and throughout, and the session was topped by Jorge Martin who leads the field into day two in Texas.

Although the track was dry, there seemed to be relatively limited grip on-track early on. Miguel Oliveira chose a new soft-compound rear tyre at the start of the session, and improved to fourth-fastest, but then crashed when he touched the kerb on the entry to turn two. That was not so much down to grip, but a front slide for Fabio Quartararo and a rear slide for Alex Marquez showed some of the limitations. 

Nonetheless, Francesco Bagnaia was able to go second-fastest in the combined times, less than one-tenth-of-a-second behind P1 time-topper Luca Marini, with a medium-compound tyre he had already used in first practice.

The time attacks started with 15 minutes to go. Joan Mir was the first to hit the top, before he was displaced by Alex Rins, who was displaced in turn by Aleix Espargaro.
Maverick Vinales then became the first rider of the weekend into the 2:02 bracket, but he was soon pushed to fourth place by Alex Rins, Luca Marini, and finally Francesco Bagnaia, who ended his first time attack run on top of the time sheet.

Jorge Martin struggled in his first time attack. He had used a used hard-compound front tyre, and missed front grip. With a fresh tyre of the came compound, he went fastest, and ended the session on top with a 2:02.178, 0.063 seconds ahead of Francesco Bagnaia. Alex Rins impressed in third place for LCR Honda.

Luca Marini was fourth, ahead of Alex Marquez and Maverick Vinales, who completed the top six; while Fabio Quartararo was the only Yamaha rider in the top 10 in seventh. A late lap from Brad Binder put him eighth, ahead of Aleix Espargaro and Jack Miller, who completed the top 10 for KTM.

Binder’s late lap for eighth was at the cost of Marco Bezzecchi, and the championship leader will therefore have to go through Q1 tomorrow, having finished Friday in 11th.
Having been at the top of the times earlier in the session, Joan Mir ended P2 12th in the combined times, and crashed avoiding Johann Zarco’s Ducati, the Frenchman having crashed in the middle of the first sector 'esses' and his bike having re-entered the track due to the layout’s shape.

Full MotoGP Austin results from the combined practice sessions at the Circuit of the Americas are below.

2023 Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | Combined Practice Results

P1

The Circuit of the Americas was, as has become relatively usual for the MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas, under consistent cloud cover on Friday morning for Practice 1. The grid is renewed for this weekend with replacements for the riders injured at the first round in Portugal, but it was Luca Marini who topped the opening session of the weekend.

Jonas Folger’s return to MotoGP did not get off to the best start, as he had to return to the pits at the end of his out-lap for some smoke coming from his bike. There was no fluid, so the presumption is that it was something catching with the rear tyre. Folger was back out with just under 40 minutes left on the clock.

While Folger was dealing with his bike issues, his teammate for the foreseeable, GasGas Tech3’s only remaining full-time rider, 2022 Moto2 World Champion Augusto Fernandez, crashed at turn 19. The #37 was unharmed, but it was not the idea start to his MotoGP debut at perhaps the most technical circuit of the season.

A number of riders took their respective turns at the top. Franco Morbidelli was there very early, but was struggling to be in the top 10 later on. His factory Yamaha teammate, Fabio Quartararo, was able to be top with 15 minutes to go, however, thanks in part to a fresh medium-compound Michelin rear tyre.

Some fresh soft-compound tyres went in at the end, with Maverick Vinales taking point first for Aprilia, before Luca Marini displaced him on the VR46 Ducati.

In fact, Marini’s speed was outstanding in the final part of the session. He was more or less the only rider capable of matching Fabio Quartararo in the final sector of the lap, and he ended the opening session of the weekend fastest by 0.150 seconds.

Quartararo himself finished an encouraging session. Although some riders opted to avoid using soft tyres in this first practice, Quartararo was still able to finish ahead of 11 riders who took a soft at the end, perhaps indicating that Yamaha’s time attack troubles have been resolved, or at least that they might be less significant at the technical Texas circuit.

Johann Zarco made it two French riders in the top three, finishing 0.278 seconds behind Marini in third, while Alex Marquez ensured three Ducati riders were in the top five positions at the end of P1. Jack Miller made sure there were no more than three, as he finished fifth on the KTM, ahead of Jorge Martin who rounded out the top six.

Francesco Bagnaia was seventh, and the only rider in the top 10 to not use a soft rear tyre for his time attack. The Italian was ahead of Maverick Vinales, Takaaki Nakagami, and Brad Binder who completed the top 10.

A crash for Marco Bezzecchi meant the current world championship leader ended the session in 13th, while Aleix Espargaro was the slowest Aprilia in 18th.

Full MotoGP Austin results from first practice at the Circuit of the Americas are below.

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | P1 Results