Rins and Vinales fastest in FP1, FP2 – OA Sport at 21.10

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17.49 Our live broadcast stops here, but we give you an appointment before 21.10 Italian time for the second free session of the MotoGP in Texas.

17.47 Pending the qualifying simulations in FP2, Pecco Bagnaia (13th) with Ducati remains late.

17.44 Very encouraging signs on the pace for Alex Rins on Suzuki and for Maverick Vinales on Aprilia. Good signs also for Miller with Ducati and for Quartararo with Yamaha, while Marc Marquez proved to be competitive but not yet superior to the competition.

17.42 Below is the top10 of FP1 for MotoGP in Austin:

17.40 CHESS FLAG !!! Rins improves again in 2’04 ″ 007, but Vinales flies with Aprilia and is 2nd just 8 thousandths from the top! 3rd Miller with four tenths, then Quartararo and Marc Marquez. 7th Bastianini, 13th Bagnaia at 1 ″.

17.39 Last minute before the checkered flag! Rins still files a few cents at his best time and stops the clock in 2’04 ″ 073, showing a great pace with Suzuki.

17.38 Rins flies !!! Suzuki leads in 2’04 ″ 168 with two tenths of a margin over Vinales, Miller and Quartararo. 5th Marc Marquez.

17.36 Finally an acute by Enea Bastianini !!! 5th time for the young Ducati rider from Romagna, who is only two tenths from Vinales’ best time.

17.35 Excellent pace in this phase for Rins and Quartararo, who lap in 2’04 ″ 4 placing themselves between the Aprilia of Vinales and the Honda of Marquez in the standings.

17.34 UPDATED RANKING TIMES:

17.32 Last 8 minutes of the shift. The ranking changes behind Vinales and Marquez, with Quartararo rising to 3rd place ahead of Nakagami, Rins, Mir, Miller and Aleix Espargarò.

17.30 Super Vinales !!! Best time in 2’04 ″ 373 for the Spaniard from Aprilia, ahead of Marquez by 96 thousandths! Medium tire used at the rear for the former Yamaha centaur …

17.27 Very interesting time for Marquez, who crosses the finish line in 2’04 ″ 8, lapping alone and with used tires. Attention also to Maverick Vinales’ Aprilia, which is pushing very hard in the first sectors.

17.25 First ring on Friday for Jorge Martin, 7th with the Ducati Pramac in 2’05 ″ 3 with a gap of eight tenths from Marquez’s best time.

17.23 Marc Marquez is engaged in the second run of the day with the tires used previously, without being able to improve. Aleix Espargarò gains some positions and is 11th with Aprilia in 2’05 ″ 6.

17.20 Technical problem for Rins’ Suzuki! The Catalan must return to the pits at low speed. Very good Andrea Dovizioso for the moment, 7th with the Yamaha of Team WithU.

17.18 The difficulties of the KTMs (the best is 14th with Brad Binder) and of the world leader Aleix Espargarò, 16th with Aprilia, should be recorded in this phase.

17.17 Mir in the meantime enters the provisional top10 with Suzuki in 2’05 ″ 6, moving to eighth position at 1 ″ 1 from Marquez’s best time.

17.16 UPDATED RANKING TIMES:

17.14 Finally a good step forward for Bagnaia! Ninth time in 2’05 ″ 6 for the Ducatista, who moves to 1 ″ 2 from the leader Marc Marquez when there are 26 minutes left in FP1.

17.12 Quartararo and Vinales improve and get closer to Marquez, bypassing Rins’ Suzuki in the standings and entering second and third place respectively. Still very far Pecco Bagnaia, 15 ° 2 ″ from the summit.

17.10 Marc Marquez is back! This time the Honda Spaniard completes a clean lap and takes the lead in 2’04 ″ 4, trimming half a second to Rins’ Suzuki and almost seven tenths to Quartararo’s Yamaha.

17.08 UPDATED RANKING TIMES:

17.05 Marc Marquez hits a shot and stops the clock in 2’05 ″ 0, but his time is canceled for having exceeded the limits of the track. However, first encouraging signs for Honda’s eight-time world champion.

17.03 Times still not very indicative in this phase. At the moment Alex Marquez sets the pace in 2’06 ″ 9 ahead of Zarco and the Suzuki of Mir and Rins. Far Bagnaia, 19th.

17.01 Miller is the fastest at the end of the first lap launched in 2’08 ″ 2 ahead of the Suzuki of Rins and Mir. Pol Espargarò’s weekend begins uphill, protagonist of a crash without consequences with Honda.

17.00 All the drivers on the track are fitted with soft tires on the front and medium tires on the rear, with the exception of a Brad Binder who opts for the hard rear tire on the KTM.

16.58 We remind you that the track record (pre-resurfacing) for MotoGP belongs to Marc Marquez in 2’02 ″ 135, while the fastest lap in the race was always signed by the Cervera champion in 2’03 ″ 575.

16.55 GREEN LIGHT!!! First 45 minutes of track activity for the top class at COTA.

16.53 Now we are! Soon everyone on the track in Austin for the first free practice session of the MotoGP!

16.51 Among the possible candidates for a place on the podium we can also indicate Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha (2nd last year in Austin), the Suzuki, the official KTMs and the Honda of Pol Espargarò.

16.49 Great curiosity to see the Ducati patrol at work, with Jorge Martin returning from an excellent weekend in Argentina and with a Francesco Bagnaia who is chasing the first podium of the season. Jack Miller can also perform well on the Texan ups and downs, especially in qualifying.

16.46 Aprilia comes to Texas in command of the championship after Aleix Espargarò’s triumph in Argentina, even if the Noale house could be forced to limit the damage in these three-days on a rather unfavorable track on paper (the absence of holes, however, can drastically change the scenario).

16.42 One of the most important factors to take into consideration this weekend compared to the past is the new resurfacing (especially in the Snake of the first sector) carried out by the organizers of the COTA after the 2021 GP, in which the drivers had to run on a track full of holes and dips.

16.38 Below is the general classification of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship after the first three stages of the season:

1. Aleix Espargarò (Aprilia) 45
2. Brad Binder (KTM) 38
3. Enea Bastianini (Ducati) 36
3. Alex Rins (Suzuki) 36
5. Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) 35
6. Joan Mir (Suzuki) 33
7. Miguel Oliveira (KTM) 28
8. Johann Zarco (Ducati) 24
9. Pol Espargarò (Honda) 20
9. Jorge Martin (Ducati) 20
11. Jack Miller (Ducati) 15
12. Franco Morbidelli (Yamaha) 14
13. Maverick Vinales (Aprilia) 13
14. Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) 12
15. Marc Marquez (Honda) 11
16. Takaaki Nakagami (Honda) 10
16. Luca Marini (Ducati) 10
18. Marco Bezzecchi (Ducati) 7
19. Darryn Binder (Yamaha) 6
20. Alex Marquez (Honda) 4
21. Andrea Dovizioso (Yamaha) 2
22. Remy Gardner (KTM) 1

16.34 Headlights this weekend in Texas on Marc Marquez, who returns to compete after missing the last two races following a new episode of diplopia that emerged due to the very bad fall he was the protagonist of in the Mandalika warm-up.

16.30 The blue placings in the top3 were collected by four different men. Valentino Rossi finished 3rd in 2015 and 2nd in 2017. Andrea Dovizioso ranked 3rd in 2014 and 2nd in 2015. Andrea Iannone finished 3rd in both 2016 and 2018. Francesco Bagnaia finished 3rd placed in 2021.

16.26 This means that the Spanish drivers have so far excelled in all 8 Grand Prix of the Americas disputed in history. The podiums of the Italian centaurs are 7, but obviously so far no representative of the Bel Paese has yet managed to pass first under the checkered flag.

16.23 Austin is an authentic fiefdom of Marc Marquez, who has won 7 of the 8 races held there (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021)! The champion from Cervera missed the appointment with success only in 2019, the year in which he crashed, giving the green light to Alex Rins.

16.19 The two-wheel circus takes the stage at COTA in Austin for the last extra-European appointment before starting the long tour de force (12 GPs in less than five months) in the Old Continent.

16.15 Good afternoon friends of OA Sport and welcome to the live broadcast of the first free practice session of the 2022 Grand Prix of the Americas, fourth round of the MotoGP World Championship.

How to follow free practice on TV / streaming – The presentation of the Americas GP – The return of Marc Marquez – GP Americas numbers and statistics

Hello and welcome back to LIVE LIVE of the free practice sessions of the GP of the Americas, fourth round of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship. On the track of Austin, in Texas, the drivers and teams will work hard to find the right setup for tomorrow’s qualifying and Sunday’s race. A very intense first day is expected since none of the leading players on the track will want to waste too much time, given the very level context.

It has returned from the appointment of Termas de Rio Hondo, in Argentina, where a surprise Aprilia and the Spanish Aleix Espargaró they gave themselves something special: first top-class victory and top of the general classification. With a light heart and with the desire to continue to amaze, the Iberian will push the bike from Noale in search of new relevant results, aware, however, that there could be the response of the most accredited teams.

The reference is to Ducati, Yamaha and Honda who for various reasons cannot be satisfied with their start to the season. The Borgo Panigale manufacturer, especially due to the problems that emerged in the official team, struggled to find the right place with the new GP22, a very advanced bike from a technical point of view, but not easy to set up. He knows something about it Francesco Bagnaia, definitely in difficulty during the first three appearances of the season, and perhaps on the right path only after the last GP in Argentina. Fifth place, according to “Pecco”, could be the turning point. We’ll see.

As for the two Japanese teams, in Iwata they have to do something to put the French in conditions Fabio Quartararo to really fight for the title. The 2021 world champion found himself in a very precarious condition in Termas de Rio Hondo and the reasons are unknown, we will see if it will go better in Austin. From this point of view they also hope so Franco Morbidelli and Andrea Dovizioso. Honda, on the other hand, will find it Mark Marquez, returned to racing after the precautionary stop after the accident in Mandalika (Indonesia). The Iberian returns to one of his favorite hunting spots, citing seven wins and seven pole positions in Texas. We will then discover the condition of him.

OA Sport offers you the LIVE LIVE of the free practice sessions of the GP of the Americas, fourth round of the 2022 MotoGP World Championship: news in real time and constant updates. FP1 starts at 16.55 Italian, while the second session is scheduled for 21.10 Italian. Good fun!

Photo: LaPresse