Qualifying

On familiar territory, Maverick Viñales delivered his best Friday performance on day 1 at COTA, after he qualified directly to Q2 with the 8th time, to spare him from the critical qualifying 1. Top Gun arrived at Super Saturday with a positive state of mind and good confidence from the previous day, which was confirmed after the final Free Practice as he claimed the 3rd best time of the session with 2'02.656, behind Marquez brothers. When Q2 time arrived, his first of the season, the number 12 started with a 2'02.154 in his first run, close to his rivals. In the second run, the Spaniard left on his own for his last two remaining time-attacks. All sectors were red from all over the place with everyone giving it their all to take the pole in Austin, but it was in the end Marc Marquez who took it, making it pole position 3/3 this season. Maverick improved to 2’02.019 in his final lap, to take the 10th time. Top Gun will open the 4th row as he looks to defend his 2024 trophy, in both sprint and main event. On Enea Bastianini’s side, the adaptation to the RC16 continues to be tricky and challenging, but the Italian showed small progress as he qualified  in 17th position on the grid, with an improved lap in 2’02.868 reached on his final time attack during the tough and competitive Q1, that saw Luca Marini and Fabio Quartararo take the 2 qualifying spots.

Tissot Sprint

The Texan sun made its much-awaited appearance just in time for the Tissot Sprint on Saturday, setting the stage for a 10-lap shootout fully dry, the best track conditions of the weekend so far. From his 10th place on the grid, Maverick Viñales opted for the outside of T1 as lights went out at 15:00. It was a busy sequence of first turns at the start, with everyone trying to earn themselves a spot while avoiding collisions. Top Gun earned a position after the first corners to 9th and had to defend it against Luca Marini. Eventually, Maverick was the one to come through on top after an intense opening lap which saw Marc Marquez, Alex Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia battle it out for the lead. The next lap, Pedro Acosta was in the sight of Viñales after the young shark had dropped from his 4th position on the grid, and quickly Top Gun found himself in a battle for 7th alongside Acosta, Marini and Mir. After 4 laps, Maverick was closer than ever to Acosta 0.079 seconds in his back wheel. Lap 5 became more intense, Viñales tried to attack on the shark, overtook him, but was immediately overtaken back as the 37 defended his ground. The next lap, it first appeared that a small mistake was made as the Spaniard dropped to 10th, but he continued to further drop, until he was in 18th on lap 7. Eventually, he returned to the pitbox following a technical issue. On the other side, from his 17th place, we saw once again a rather aggressive Enea Bastianini willing to gain as many positions as possible at the sprint start. First, the Italian retained his position after the opening lap, but he was quickly in a battle with Johann Zarco and Firmin Aldeguer as they all tried to stay with the group. Jack Miller’s big drop earned Bestia a move up to 16th in the second lap, a position he remained in for a while as he tried to stay close to Zarco, while encountering some vibration issues at the rear that bothered him in the early laps, until he figured out a way to manage these. On lap 5, he moved up to 13th following Joan Mir’s crash, and the next one, Bestia was on fire with a 2’03.593, faster than most of the guys ahead of him.  Firmin Aldeguer was ahead, but Bastia could not quite close the gap on the rookie. He saw the checkered flag in P13, and he will look forward to trying again on the long distance. Don’t miss the main event on Sunday at 14:00 local time (UTC-5), and watch out for the daylight saving time changes occuring in some regions!