2016 Americas MotoGP: Marquez winning spree prevails

Marc Marquez will be the guy to beat Austin wasn’t much of a brainer. The Repsol Honda has won the previous three rounds of the race held at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) race track. He started the race weekend in brilliant form racking up the fastest time in all the free practice sessions and despite Jorge Lorenzo putting up a brave fight, he grabbed his fourth consecutive pole position at COTA. Andrea Iannone qualified third but he was handed a penalty owing to crashing into team-mate Andrea Dovizioso which meant Valentino Rossi grabbed the last spot on the front row.

The top three riders made a good start with the pecking order remaining unchanged. Lorenzo was able to pass Marquez few corners later but only for a brief period as he ran wide which relegated him to fourth place behind Rossi and Dovizioso. The nine time champion though was struggling for straight line speed as he was overtaken by Lorenzo, Dovizioso, Dani Pedrosa and Aleix Espargaro which pushed him down to sixth position. The above formation didn’t change till the second lap but every rider was within fractions of a second of each other making it an interesting spectacle for the American fans. 

Rossi was struggling for pace and was pushing on the limit to regain the lost position and was quickly up in fifth position. But suddenly he lost his front end slid out of the race, luckily for the Italian rider he didn’t sustain any serious injuries despite a high speed crash but visibly dejected with his mistake. He later said that the Michelin tyres aren’t as forgiving as the new Michelin rubber and riders will pay for any small mistake. With Rossi out of contention, it was a close battle for second position while race leader was in his dominating best as he slowly started etching a healthy lead over his rivals.

Dovizioso was coming under tremendous pressure from a resurgent Lorenzo and the Ducati rider finally cracked as he was out braked by the reigning champion to take the race lead. Pedrosa also had increased hi pace and hunting down Dovizioso, the Repsol Honda rider lost his front braking into the first corner of the track and his sliding bike hit the Ducati of Dovizioso and he was wiped out of the race. It was a bitter blow to the Italian rider as he was taken out of the race in a similar fashion in Argentina just a week back. 

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Among all this chaos Marquez was in his own zone and he started posting some blistering fast lap times to further expand his race lead while Lorenzo had settled down in a rather lonely second position. The crash fest continued as in the 12th lap of the race Cal Crutchlow and Bradley Smith too crashed out on turn 1. Pedrosa also retired and it was heartening to see him head to the Ducati pits and apologising to Andrea Dovizioso for his mistake and proved why he is rated as the nicest guy on the MotoGP grid. While Andrea Iannone settled down in third place there was an engaging scuffle between Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales for fourth position.

Both the Suzuki riders exchanged positions on various occasions but it was the young Vinales who won the battle and started building a healthy lead ahead of his team-mate. Marc Marquez crossed the finish line with a wheelie to seal his fourth straight win at COTA which gives him a healthy lead in the championship standings. Lorenzo took second while the final place on the rostrum went to Andrea Dovizioso who opened his account in the 2016 season after consecutive DNF in the opening two rounds.