Márquez throws down the gauntlet in Texas

www.motorsportimages.it - Repsol Honda Team’s Marc Márquez got his second ever MotoGP™ race weekend off to the ideal start as he led proceedings on day one at the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas at the Circuit of the Americas ahead of teammate Dani Pedrosa and LCR Honda MotoGP’s Stefan Bradl.

Márquez completed his domination of Friday practice as MotoGP™ action began in Texas by topping both opening sessions. Following on from the three-day test session in which he took part a month ago, today Márquez again looked comfortable from the off. Posting a best lap time of 2’05.031, improving on his previous best effort as the afternoon chequered flag flew, the 20-year-old Catalan led compatriot Pedrosa by over half a second.

  

Bradl moved into the top three as championship leader Jorge Lorenzo and Yamaha Factory Racing teammate Valentino Rossi rounded out the top five, with Lorenzo citing that corner entry was one of the main issues. Cal Crutchlow was sixth for Monster Yamaha Tech 3,1.8 seconds off the leading pace, yet is optimistic that times will drop tomorrow. Andrea Dovizioso led the way for the Ducati Team from seventh with teammate Nicky Hayden in ninth, the American now also running a smaller version of the front fairing. Dovizioso suffered an electrical glitch in the afternoon, and was not able to make the most of the limited track time.

GO&FUN Honda Gresini’s Álvaro Bautista, who seemingly took an immediate liking to the 5.5-kilometre layout, was eighth, whilst Ignite Pramac Racing team’s Ben Spies rounded out the top ten. PBM’s Yonny Hernandez impressed in the morning session, finishing 11th and leading the way for the CRT runners, but Qatar pace-setter Aleix Espargaró was back on form in the afternoon and demoted the Colombian to 12th; this was notwithstanding a brief front end issue for the Power Electronics Aspar rider.

Hoping to move ahead of those two CRT runners is England’s Bradley Smith, whose MotoGP debut continued with the task of learning a challenging new circuit. He ended the day in 13th position ahead of Aspar’s Randy de Puniet, who suffered the first significant fall of the weekend but escaped unharmed.

Energy T.I. Pramac Racing’s Andrea Iannone was another man to find himself mixed up with CRT runners, finishing narrowly ahead of Cardion AB Motoracing’s Karel Abraham, NGM Mobile Forward Racing’s Claudio Corti, Avintia Blusens’ Hiroshi Aoyama and Came IodaRacing Project’s Danilo Petrucci. In 20th place, Michael Laverty was encouraged by the pace of PBM’s own-built bike, behind which were no less than four regular runners.

The field was completed by Ioda’s Lukas Pesek, Gresini’s Bryan Staring, Forward’s local boy Colin Edwards and Blusens’ Hector Barbera. Rounding out the 26-rider field were this weekend’s pair of American wildcard riders: Blake Young and Michael Barnes of their respective Attack Performance Racing and GPTech outfits.