MotoGP: Texas Preview – Can Marquez Make It 7 from 7?

April 12, 2019

MotoGP returns to the Lone Star State of Texas for the seventh time at Circuit of the Americas. There has been one man that has made Austin is own and he is, Marc Marquez. Like an outlaw in the “old west”, he turns up, does his business and rides off into the sunset and in doing so, creating a legend.

2019 will see Marc Marquez chase down his seventh straight win at the 3.426 mile circuit, the only man to win at the circuit in as many years. Marquez is unrivalled at the Circuit of the Americas or it’s abbreviated term – COTA. His first of 45 (premier class) wins came at the circuit in 2013, where he took pole position to become the youngest ever pole sitter at 20 years & 62 days and followed that up with the win the following day to become the youngest ever MotoGP winner.

His winning margins have somewhat represented his dominance, with his first win being his smallest winning margin of 1.534 seconds and in 2016, his largest with, 6.107 seconds. Marquez holds the lap record (set during the race) with a 2:03.575. Although the circuit record of 2:02.175 (set in 2015) came under the most unusual circumstances, where in final qualifying his number 1 bike stopped on the home straight, he lept the wall, jumped on his second bike, crossed the line with only seconds to spare and set a blistering lap to set take pole and the circuit record, which has yet to be broken. With this undisputed record, you’d be brave to bet against the man.

Will Marquez win the duel again or will someone draw their weapon just a little quicker and come out on top in Texas?

Dovi Looking For His Reward

Andrea Dovizioso and Ducati come into COTA with an air of optimism, they are fresh off a podium (3rd) in Argentina – a track in which they haven’t had much success on in the past. The Circuit of the Americas hasn’t been a happy hunting ground with Dovizioso only scoring one podium in six previous attempts. That came back in 2015 when he scored second spot behind Marquez and ahead of Valentino Rossi.

Dovi will be looking to build upon a weekend where they might not be strong from the offset but will work towards the race and long distance pace. He will know that beating Marquez will be tough but not impossible, if he can’t beat Marquez then he will be aiming for the podium to limit the damage, something which Marquez believes Dovi has improved on this year. “I think Dovi is getting better in the bad points he had” said Marquez before saying, “he worked a lot in this part and now he is better, he is more constant. This makes him more dangerous for the championship.” Dovizioso know that the year is long and that a strong weekend here will set him up perfectly for the season, he is currently on 4 points behind Marquez.

Has Yamaha Turned A Corner?

If you look at the first two rounds of this season Valentino Rossi has scored a 5th and a 2nd. In Qatar he only finished 0.6 seconds behind the winner – albeit in 5th. However in Argentina he scored his first podium since July 2018 at the Sachsenring, his first in ten races. He passed Andrea Dovizioso on the last lap to grab a well overdue 2nd place, although he finished nearly 10 seconds behind Marquez. COTA has been a circuit in which Rossi has gone well at, he has scored 2 podiums since 2013, once in 2015 and again in 2017, when he finished 2nd. He might not qualify well but if he can find the pace over the weekend then he will probably feature in the battle for the podium positions.

Maverick Vinales has looked fast and brilliant in qualifying pace and this has shown at the first two rounds when he qualified on pole in Qatar and 2nd in Argentina but he doesn’t go any further than that. During the races, he has complained of lack of feel from the rear and unable to open the throttle when behind other riders, he believes that his bad starts which he believes are down to not being able to “find a good engagement of the clutch” that has allowed for these poor starts. With this in mind, Vinales did score a 2nd place finish after starting from pole in Austin in 2018 after a bad start.

Yamaha do appear to have resolved some of their issues from 2017 & 18 and COTA has been a track in which the Yamaha has traditionally been strong. Therefore we can see them both Rossi and Vinales challenge at the front of the race.

Suzuki Lack Out-and-Out Pace

Suzuki team manager Davide Brivio has praised the race performance of the Suzuki after seeing Alex Rins climb his way up from 16th on the grid to finish 5th in Argentina, “we were able to see how competitive he can be in the races” said Brivio. He went on to state “we also saw how much we have to improve in qualifying to get a better grid position”. Without such a lowly grid position in Argentina, Rins may well have had pace at the end of the race to challenge Rossi and Dozioso for the podium.

The target of the team will be to qualify within the top 10, which will allow Rins to stand a chance of fighting for the podium. The Suzuki has looked a very competitive machine in the hands of Alex Rins and with Rins scoring a 4th and a 5th in the first two event of the season, he and the team are looking to score their first podium of the year.

Other Things To Look Out For

Cal Crutchlow will be looking to make amends for the jump start penalty he was handed in Argentina. He has gone well in the past at in Austin but has never stood on the rostrum, he had good pace in 2018 before crashing out and will be hoping to challenge for a podium.

The bumps on the circuit could have an affect on the characteristics of the bikes and the racing. There were complaints after 2017 of excessive bumps and the circuit tried to smooth these bumps out by grinding them down which made the track extremely dusty. “They tried to fix last year but it was not good on the straight. It was full of dust” said Rins. “The bumps are an increasing issue” added Dovizioso, “the problem is there are bumps everywhere and with the bike it’s very difficult to ride. Not just to be fast.”

Moto2

Lorenzo Baldessari comes into this weekend as championship leader after winning both rounds of the championship ahead of Remy Gardner, son of 1987 500cc World Champion – Wayne. Baldessari will be hoping to continue this run and make it a hat trick of wins in 2019 and continue to be the only man to win on a Triumph machine in Moto2.

Mattia Pasini returns to Moto2 grid to replace the injured Augusto Fernández in the Sito Pons team and will be team mate to the championship leader Lorenzo Baldesarri.

Sam Lowes will hope to bounce back from a crash in Argentina where he scored zero points. COTA is a circuit in which he has gone well on in the past, including taking his maiden in 2015 on the unfavoured Speed-Up chassis machine.

Moto3

There have been 7 different winners from as many races in the class and three new winners in the past three races. There were many riders that hadn’t won a Moto3 race, Darryn Binder (2nd), Tony Arbolino (3rd), Ayumi Sasaki (5th) and Gabriele Rodrigo (6th) that all could have won in Argentina. They will be ones to look out for to try and increase that statistic to 8 different winners and 4 new winners from as many races.

In his previous two races in Moto3, Romano Fenati has won on each of those two occasions (2016) and (2017). After finishing outside the pints in 16th at Argentina, he will be looking to take his first win since October 2017 – Motegi in Japan.

#RideOnKentuckyKid

This weekend at the Circuit of the Americas will see the retirement of Nicky Hayden’s iconic number 69 from MotoGP. There will be a ceremony on the starting grid on Friday with Nicky’s family in attendance, along with his title winning 2006 Repsol Honda RC211V.