2018 Americas MotoGP: Márquez, Bagnaia and Martín win the races

Marc Márquez’s love affair with the Circuit of the Americas continues. Although on this occasion the Spanish rider failed to take pole position because he was penalised, that has not stopped him from repeating his win in Austin, and now he has six in a row. With the 25 points scored by the Repsol rider Honda, he moves into second place in the overall World Championship standings, one point behind leader Andrea Dovizioso, who has 46 points.

Although he started from the second row, Márquez practically dominated the race from start to finish, because from the start he was already in second place and before the end of the first lap he had already overtaken Andrea Iannone. The Italian held second position until halfway through the race, when Maverick Viñales passed him, and the podium was definitively set in that order. Rossi was fourth, Dovi fifth, Pedrosa sixth despite his physical problems, and Rabat eighth, and Aleix Espargaró tenth, the other Spanish riders inside the top ten, while Jorge Lorenzo, eleventh, was not.

The Spanish anthem had already played earlier at the 2018 Americas GP thanks to Jorge Martín, who won in the Moto3 category. The Spanish rider made his pole position count to win a race that was quite lively and had several changes of leader. In the end, Martín managed the last laps well and handled the pressure from the Italians Bastianini and Bezzecchi, who were the ones who joined him on the podium. With the 25 points added, Martín moves into the lead of Moto3, 7 points ahead of Aron Canet, who could only finish eighth in Austin.

And if Saturday brought a triple in pole positions, Sunday could not bring a triple of victories because in Moto2 the Italian Francesco Bagnaia prevented it. Vale Rossi’s protégé passed Alex Márquez, who until then had led the race and pushed hard to break away from his rivals, five laps from the end, so Bagnaia moves back into the lead of the championship after his second victory of the year, with 57 points. For third place on the podium Joan Mir fought, but in the end he could not match the greater experience of the Portuguese rider Oliveira.

The next round of the 2018 motorcycle world championship will be the first of the season on European soil and, moreover, in Spain. The riders arrive at one of the cathedrals of motorsport, the Circuito de Jerez, for a race that will take place on 4, 5 and 6 May.