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Enea Bastianini managed to put on a stellar performance at the Grand Prix of the Americas when he topped the fifth round of MotoGP, on Sunday.
The Gresini Racing rider also emerged as the first double winner of the season after dominating the Qatar Grand Prix in March. The result also saw Bastianini return to lead the championship with 61 points, followed by Alex Rins (56 points) and Aleix Espargaro (50 points).
Bastianini was behind Jack Miller most of the race but with five laps left, Miller started to make mistakes and missed some apex. Realizing that, Bastianini managed to overtake Miller on Turn 12 and proceeded to leave the Ducati rider.
“Fantastic day! It has been really hard this race. The first part of the race Miller put a very fast pace, but then during the middle of the race when I saw Rins very close to me trying to overtake me many times I decided it was time to push for the front because also the temperature of the front tyre was too high. In the end I pushed like a bastard. It’s incredible to win here in America it’s a fantastic track, fantastic people and now it’s time to eat some hamburgers!” Bastianini says.
Meanwhile, six-time MotoGP world champion, Marc Marquez also stole the spotlight when he managed to rise from last place (P24) to finish the action in sixth position. Despite missing two races in Indonesia and Argentina due to his injury, Marquez returned with vigour and surpassed the expectations of many.
Starting in the 9th compartment, his Honda RC213V machine seemed to have problems and was in the last position heading into the first corner. However, the Spaniard managed to overtake seven riders on the same lap to embark on a mission of improving the position.
Marquez then surpassed Maverick Vinales, Brad Binder, Takaaki Nakagami and teammate Pol Espargaro for 10th place.
The Spaniard continued to push and intercept Aleix Espargaro, Johann Zarco, Jorge Martin and Fabio Quartararo to take sixth place.
“On one hand I am disappointed because it is clear we had the speed today and I was able to enjoy the race a lot, coming through from the back, but 25 points were possible today. We had a technical problem at the start, but it resolved itself and the bike was working well after that – even if I was last. I recovered many positions and had a great race despite some mistakes, which is normal when you are recovering like this.
We can see the speed is there and we can walk away from here with a lot of confidence which is important. At the end we had a really nice battle with Fabio but when the race finished, I was destroyed, from that first lap I was giving everything I had on track to recover and finally finish in sixth. Another exciting race in Texas,” says Marquez.