As expected, Marc Márquez was in the spotlight on the first day of the MotoGP GP of the Americas – being the fastest on Friday in Austin. The first free practice, in the rain, didn’t go so well for him as he suffered a crash, but in the session, he was the only rider to lap in the 2m02s and left the closest rival 0.736s behind.
The Spanish Ducati rider spoke about the incident in FP1: ‘It was not a perfect day, because we didn’t start in the best way. I made a mistake, and there was no time to do that kind of mistake in the first laps of the FP1. But it can happen, extra confidence… I was riding like there was no water, and there was a lot of water in that corner. I had aquaplaning. But I understood immediately, and then I didn’t slow down because I was not riding over my limits. But I just took care with the special points of this circuit’.
Despite the good feelings and the significant margin he had, Márquez expects tomorrow to be different and more balanced: ‘This afternoon, I felt well with the slick tyres. These are not the real results, because tomorrow everything will be tighter, but it’s good to start with that confidence’.
As for rivals, the #93 rider considers not only the Ducati riders but also KTM: ‘Tomorrow we will see more of the reality. I believe that maybe [Pedro] Acosta and [Maverick] Viñales can be closer, because there are a lot of stop-and-go corners here, and KTM is good there – especially in the acceleration from the first gear, they are really fast there. So, I expect Acosta and Viñales will be strong. And then, all the Ducatis will be there at the top as we saw today’.