MotoGP: More From The Red Bull Grand Prix Of The Americas In Austin
03/28/2025 08:00 PM
With a perfect scorecard after two rounds of the 2025 season, Marc Marquez said he had to be wary of overconfidence en route to Circuit of The Americas, where he has won seven races. Marquez was quick to point out that this was the only circuit where he crashed out in 2019, the season where he won 12 of 19 races and set a record for the biggest points gap back to second at the end of the year. The wet surface at COTA indeed bit him in the first practice session on Friday, his factory Ducati launching him into a nasty highside in the downhill Turn Two. Marquez returned to pit lane, finished the session fourth and led the second session on a damp-but-drying track in the afternoon.
Franco Morbidelli carried his momentum from a podium finish in the Grand Prix race in Argentina to Austin, topping the first practice session on Friday and ending the second session third. It was a 2-3 finish to the session for the Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing Team, with Fabio Di Giannantonio second. After an embarrassing crash in pre-season testing, Di Giannantonio said he felt he could fight for podium positions at COTA.
BK8 Gresini teammates Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer took fourth and fifth, giving Ducati a clean sweep of the top five positions. Two-time MotoGP World Champion Francesco Bagnaia continued with his difficult beginning to the season, finishing the second session tenth and just making it into Q2 for Saturday.
Jack Miller led the non-Ducati charge on his Pramac Yamaha YZR-M1. Quick in the wet, Miller and Joan Mir on the factory Honda were the only two Japanese bikes in the top 10. But this season has only six Ducatis in the field, and Johann Zarco, who battled for the podium in Argentina but crashed and finished 20th, pointed out earlier in the year that with two of the almighty Desmosedicis gone, the others would obviously move up the order.
Raise two kids and have them win 10 World Championships, smash the record books and lead the current season by locking out the top two positions on the podium in four straight races, and fans will want to get selfies taken with you. Julia Marquez is living the racing parent’s dream.
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