Márquez Takes Dominant American MotoGP Win
Calum Gill 21:13 03/10/2021
Honda factory rider Marc Márquez has taken his seventh win in eight MotoGP races at COTA, as Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo extended his lead at the top of the standings.
Having been beaten by Quartararo's main championship rival Francesco Bagnaia in qualifying, Márquez only started from the outside of the front row. However, this was rectified in a matter of seconds as he led the pack coming down the hill out of the first corner. Behind him, Quartararo lunged down the inside of Ducati's Bagnaia at Turn 1, and it was Quartararo who kept Márquez under pressure in the opening laps. But when a charging Jorge Martín, having been among several riders getting past Bagnaia early on, started to hound Quartararo, Márquez - perhaps coincidentally - picked his moment to ramp up the pace, getting more than a second clear of the championship leader by lap six.
A few laps later, as the race passed its halfway point, that gap was up to a mammoth three-and-a-half seconds, even though Quartararo did manage to shake off Pramac Ducati man Martín. It was a lonely race from then on for the two leading riders, with Márquez taking the chequered flag 4.679 seconds clear of Quartararo. France's Quartararo will become his country's first premier class world champion next time out at Misano if he betters the result of Bagnaia, or if the Italian can only cut Quartararo's 52 point lead by 1 point.
Bagnaia, who was down to sixth in the early going, mounted a solid recovery ride to claim the final spot on the podium. Having re-overtaken Suzuki’s Álex Rins for fifth, Bagnaia was then literally waved through into fourth by Ducati team-mate Jack Miller, after Miller - the only rider in the field to race with a hard compound rear tyre - was informed on his pit board that his title-contending team-mate was behind him. Bagnaia then reeled in Martín, helped by the Pramac man straightlining the Turns 3-5 section, and overtook him under braking into Turn 12 - although by then his passage into third was already secured, Martín having been awarded a long-lap penalty for the shortcut.
That long-lap penalty dropped Martín into fifth, behind Rins, who had eased past an increasingly struggling Miller. Miller was then also overtaken by Enea Bastianini (Avintia Esponsorama) and reigning champion Joan Mir (Suzuki) on the final lap, as a consequence of contact with Mir that opened the door to the rookie. Mir was on the receiving end of a tirade from Miller on the cooldown lap, and his seventh-place finish was not enough to keep his title defence going - leaving just Quartararo and Bagnaia in mathematical contention for the title. It then became an eighth-place finish when he was demoted behind Miller post-race for “irresponsible riding”.
KTM’s top rider was Brad Binder in ninth place, while Pol Espargaró (Honda) completed the top 10. Petronas Yamaha SRT’s new rider Andrea Dovizioso was 13th, while the returning Franco Morbidelli - now a factory Yamaha rider - slumped to last, still appearing to struggle for fitness. LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami was the first faller of the race on the second lap, going down while in pursuit of Bagnaia at the end of the back straight. Aprilia’s Aleix Espargaró went down at the following corner, the Turn 13 right-hander, a few laps later for what was his fifth crash of the weekend, while Pramac Ducati’s Johann Zarco was another retirement, tipping off at Turn 1.
