In the Lone Star State, one star rose above the rest.
Álex Rins was peerless on Sunday at the Americas Grand Prix, reprising his 2019 role as the king of COTA and giving his LCR team and its Honda supplier a much-needed morale boost.
His battle with Francesco Bagnaia for victory was thrilling — while it lasted, of course.
Bagnaia looked good to correct course after his Argentina crash, winning the sprint at a canter and holding off Rins’s advances in the race right up until he made his latest unforced error, binning his bike and scoring no points for the second Sunday in a row.
It looks like an alarming repeat of last year’s crash-prone start, albeit he eventually won the title. Perhaps this is just the way he needs to go about his business.
WINNER: ÁLEX RINS AND HONDA
When Suzuki refugees Rins and Joan Mir landed rides on the troubled Honda bike, it was difficult to predict when their next wins would come, and you’d have got long odds on Rins and his satellite bike getting to the top step before his factory-riding former teammate.
But Álex is in understated form, having won three of the last six grands prix dating back to his thrilling Australian Grand Prix victory last October.
And the Circuit of the Americas is one of those circuits that just click for the 27-year-old. Prior to this weekend he was one of only three riders to have ever won at the track in the premier class along with Enea Bastianini and Marc Márquez. He’s also a COTA winner in both Moto3 and Moto2.
The layout plays to Rins’s smooth-riding strengths. The inconsistent track grip — thanks to the patchwork resurfacing and bump grinding — rewards patience on the throttle and a more classical, wide-cornering style. The Spaniard managed to set his bike up to play to his strengths, qualifying second and then being able to harry Bagnaia through the first two sectors, where corner speed is way more influential that top speed.
It’s impossible to say for certain whether he would have won without Pecco’s crash, but he certainly had the momentum in the one-on-one battle when first place came to him.
“I’m so proud because we did a great job all weekend,” he told the MotoGP website. “I’m happy because I’m creating my base and it’s working quite good. Especially this weekend we did a step forward.”
It’s way too early to say, but it would be interesting to discover that Rins has a riding style that can tame what’s been a difficult Honda bike for several years now.
It’s the first win by a Honda machine since the 2021 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, and Rins is the first rider who isn’t Marc Márquez to win for the Japanese manufacturer since Cal Crutchlow won for LCR at the 2018 Argentine Grand Prix.
It hasn’t solved all Honda’s problems, but after a painful winless 2022 and struggling for development direction, it’s a welcome morale boost.
LOSER: FRANCESCO BAGNAIA
Once is happenstance, but after Bagnaia’s second unforced error in as many grands prix, you’d struggle to find anyone who thinks twice is just a coincidence.
It’s the pattern we saw last year. When the pressure’s on — and sometimes even when it’s not — the Italian has a habit of wilting suddenly and inexplicably.
On a weekend most of his nominal title challengers struggled or were absent, he fired his chance to assert some authority as the reigning champion over the crossbar of a completely open goal.
Instead he’s counting the 45 points he’s blown through unforced errors — almost as many points as the 53 he’s actually scored.
“I don‘t know what happened,” said Bagnaia, a familiar reprise, per Crash. “So I’m very angry, not with myself, because I’m 100 per cent sure that wasn’t my fault today.”
Bagnaia’s working theory is that his bike is actually too good — so good that he isn’t getting enough feedback from the tyres when they’re at the limit, as they probably were in a flat-out battle to stay ahead of Rins.
It remains to be seen what the mechanics can do about that kind of feedback.
Of course the points picture is far from fatal. He’s only 11 points behind continuing title leader Marco Bezzecchi — remember that he was all of 91 points behind halfway through last year, and there are also many more points available this year via the sprints.
And despite his unusual criticism, he also has the best bike on the grid at this point in the season, and that isn’t likely to change much before November.
But that all means nothing if Bagnaia can’t stay on the bike.
Last year he said he had an epiphany halfway through the year after two successive crashes that put him on course for his epic recovery. After two crashes early in this campaign, he needs to come to a similarly deep understanding lest his follow-up championship season slip away in a whimper.
WINNER: THE CHAMPIONSHIP
While everyone would rather not see riders crash, the Italian’s inability to go for the jugular early in the season is good news for the championship battle and especially for those riders struggling with form or injury.
And it’s not just Bagnaia non-score this weekend that’s kept the title battle from blowing open. None of the top five in the riders championship arriving in the United States made it onto the grand prix podium this weekend, spreading the points around the field.
That’s great news for the likes for Marc Márquez and Enea Bastianini, with seven and zero points respectively, who still have half a chance of playing a role in the title battle when they return to the grid, perhaps at the next race in Spain.
Fabio Quartararo too, despite being downcast about the potential of his bike, can take heart from the fact none of his Ducati rivals is yet to really stretch their legs while Yamaha wallows with its bike.
Aleix Espargaró crashed out of the grand prix, and while Maverick Viñales had podium and debatable race-winning pace this weekend, shocking starts in the sprint and on Sunday meant fourth was his ceiling. Neither rider has been put to the sword for those mistakes.
None of the heavy hitters is out of contention just yet.
LOSER: ALEX MÁRQUEZ’S HELMET
It’s fair to say Alex Márquez had an unfulfilling weekend.
The Gresini rider had great pace and qualified fourth but crashed out of the sprint while battling in fifth place — an accident, it turned out, that wasn’t exactly his fault, at least not in the conventional sense.
“I was feeling good performance-wise in the [sprint], as despite a crash in qualifying we still had the confidence and a good pace,” Márquez said on Saturday night, per Autosport.
“Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling good physically and I even threw up under braking at turn 12 and crashed.
“I ‘freed myself’ after the race and now I feel quite well, and ready to make amends [on Sunday].”
It’s best not to think about the physics of being sick while fully helmeted, but crashing certainly seems like a completely understandable reaction.
Despite having ‘freed himself’ of the stomach bug after getting back to his garage, he fared no better on Sunday after being wiped out by Jorge Martin — who was also battling illness, albeit more like the flu, with far less spectacular outcomes — on the first lap, leaving him pointless for the weekend.
WINNER: FABIO QUARTARARO — DESPITE YAMAHA BEING A LOSER
While Quartararo secured a surprise podium on Sunday — albeit in a race featuring 10 crashes and nine failures to finish — it came after a clear example of the severe deficits still plaguing his Yamaha.
Having been promoted to second by the attrition and having battled ably to hold the place ahead of Luca Marini, the Frenchman was breezed past with embarrassing ease by the Vr46 Ducati down the back straight. The yellow bike then jetted up the road, not to be seen again before the flag.
The M1 has a little more power this year, but not nearly enough, and it’s come at the expense of rideability. It’s a diabolical combination, and Quartararo’s crash in the sprint came because he was trying to override the bike’s flaws in vain.
That he was able to strike a competitive balance on Sunday to claim some podium prosecco makes the ride all the more impressive.
There are upgrades coming for the troubled machine, but the 2021 champion has already talked down expectations that anything other than an overhaul will put him back into title contention — though the Japanese manufacturer has already signalled it’s unwilling to commit to any major changes before the new rules arrive in the second half of the decade.
LOSER: KTM
“I honestly felt the victory was on offer today,” Jack Miller said after crashing out of third place, his sixth off for the weekend.
The Australian is typically competitive at COTA, a trend that seemed to cross to his new bike, but the tricky track conditions — particularly the wind and the patchy surface — turned Sunday into a race of attrition, with nine riders failing to finish.
Miller was one of them.
“The crash was more down to the track and my pushing at that point in time,” he said. “It‘s a slippery and unforgiving track, and you had to ride with that little bit of margin, because once you lose speed, there’s no way of grabbing back the grip when you have a moment.
“You try to stick your elbow in like you do with every other sort of track and you can kind of save it, but here … you can put your elbow in as much as you like but you‘re not bringing it back. Once it went, it went.”
It leaves Miller still searching for his first big statement result for his new team.
Teammate Brad Binder suffered his own solo crash, but the South African was able to remount and finish last — but with so many riders not taking the flag, that was good enough for three points.
