Marc Marquez was back at the top of his game at COTA getting his seventh win in his eight visits to the American Grand Prix while title competitors Fabio Quartararo and Francesco Bagnaia crossed the chequered flag after Marquez to seal the podium spots. Let’s have a look at the men who shined and the men who left us wanting more from the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas.
MEN WHO SHINED
Marc Marquez displayed one of the most dominant and faultless performances since making his return to MotoGP after his horrific incident, as he picked up his second race victory of the season, finishing ahead of second-placed Fabio Quartararo who’s P2 would’ve felt like a race win as he took four points off his championship competitor Francesco Bagnaia who crossed the chequered flag in P3 to seal the podium places. Next came Suzuki’s Alex Rins who used up every ounce of his bike but could not catch Bagnaia. A long lap penalty saw Jorge Martin drop down the order finishing the race behind his fellow Spaniard. Slight collusion between Miller and Mir helped Enea Bastianini go through the pair and pick up a sixth-placed finish. Jack Miller who started the race on hard compounds made a couple of places early in the race and managed to finish P7. Miller showed great sportsmanship by letting his teammate, Bagnaia go past him and keep his championship dreams alive. Defending champion Joan Mir was next to cross the line followed by KTM’s Brad Binder and Pol Espargaro to seal the top ten of the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas.
MEN WHO LEFT US WANTING MORE
Things went from bad to worse for Johann Zarco as he continued his poor form of races with yet another retirement as a result of a crash and was soon accompanied by Aleix Espargaro who went out of the race with 12 laps remaining. After finishing P1 during the warm-up, Takaaki Nakagami had a poor start to the race and kept dropping positions and crossed the chequered flag with a disappointing P17 finish. Jorge Martin makes it to both our lists as his podium finish dreams were crushed with a long-lap penalty for using a short-cut going into turns 4 and 5.
STANDINGS:
Riders
Things look done and dusted in the Riders championship as Fabio Quartararo who is currently on 254 points is just one win away from getting his hands on the 2021 MotoGP World Championship. But things are not over till it’s over. Francesco Bagnaia sits second with 202 points and remains the only rider who can catch Quartararo mathematically. A P8 finish put an end to Joan Mir’s title defense as he sits third with just 175 points. Jack Miller made his way up to 4th in the standings with 149 points and an NC for Johann Zarco saw him stuck in P5 with 141 points. Brad Binder continues to perform in his KTM and P6 is not bad at all for the South African. The King of COTA, Marc Marquez moved up 3 positions with the race win and sits 7th with 117 points followed by Aleix Espargaro, Maverick Vinales, and Miguel Oliviera with 104, 98, and 92 points respectively.
Constructors
With just three races remaining of the 2021 MotoGP season, the Constructors championship gets as intense as it could with Ducati having just a 9 point gap to their rivals Yamaha who have 282 points on board. A decent race for Suzuki saw them hold their position as the best of the rest with 197 points, 12 ahead of 4th placed KTM. A strong race for Honda saw them close their gap to KTM to just 12 points and it’s the same story for Aprilia who sits last with 105 points.
MotoGP will now travel to Italy for the Gran Premio Nolan del Made in Italy e dell’Emilia-Romagna for its third-last race of the season, and it could be the day where Fabio Quartararo is crowned as a MotoGP World Champion.
[All Images Credit: MotoGP]
Shashank Iyer