Austin Free Practice 1: Marquez beats Miller and Zarco, 8th Bagnaia, 15th Quartararao, unknown bad weather on the weekend | News

Marc Maquez’s first “stamp” on the Grand Prix of the Americas in Texas. On the asphalt wet from the rain but which almost completely dried up in the final of the first free practice session, the Honda champion beat by 167 thousandths Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo) and 599 Johan Zarco on the Pramac GP21. Only eighth Francesco Bagnaia who detached the eighth performance but one second and 456 thousandths from the top, even fifteenth the leader of the general classification Fabio Quartararo.

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They didn’t take too many risks the Diablo and its rival in red in the session that inaugurated the Texan MotoGP weekend. Treacherous session, started and continued for a long time with wet asphalt and more favorable conditions only in the final minutes. To score the best performance was Marquez, who is a true master of COTA in Austin, with his if consecutive affirmations (from 2013 to 2018) in the GP of the Americas. Behind the “cannibal” with backward hunger there are two Ducati Desmosedici: the official one of Jack Miller (who stopped just under two tenths from the leader) e that satellite of Johan Zarco that in the final stages of the round he climbed the rankings and signed the third time, even if six tenths from Marquez. The ranking continues with the fourth time of Miguel Oliveira (KTM Factory) and Pol Espargarò with the second Honda HRC. Sixth is Alex Marquez, who usually gets excited with precarious adherence conditions: Marc’s little brother is the first to close the round with a gap of more than a second from the top (1.092) and precedes Alex Kidneys who in the most recent edition of the GP (two years ago) managed to oust Marc Marquez from his Texan throne. Francesco Bagnaia – as said eighth – is the best of the Italian patrol but for the Piedmontese to make three of a kind after the successes of Aragon and Misano (and still gain ground on Quartararo) will not be easy. Meanwhile, his rival is even further behind: fifteenth precisely at two seconds and 215 thousandths, in any case in front of the new, old teammate Franco Morbidelli, author of the seventeenth time ahead of Enea Bastianini (his teammate Luca Marini, however, is good eleventh), while Valentino Rossi and Andrea Dovizioso very sadly close the standings with the twentieth and twenty-first time and abysmal detachments from the leader.

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