MotoGP Americas GP: Vinales Makes History as Marquez Crashes Out

The third round of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship brings the Grnad Prix field to their one and only race in the Americas for this year, as Joe Martin leads the riders' standings to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

Overview

Grand Prix - Vinales makes history as Marquez crashes from the lead

Sprint - Vinales cruises to second consecutive Sprint win as Bagnaia struggles again

Qualifying - Vinales breaks lap record as Martin avoids disaster

Friday Practice - Martin breaks lap record to top Friday as Vinales backs up Portugal speed

Schedule - All the times you need to keep up with the track action in Texas

2023 - Francesco Bagnaia crashes out to hand victory to Alex Rins; Luca Marini, Fabio Quartararo complete the podium

Grand Prix

If there hadn’t been a legitimate pass for the lead after lap one of a MotoGP race in 2024 in the first five races, there were certainly plenty in the sixth. Maverick Vinales was ninth after the first corner, but was the Grand Prix of the Americas’ fourth and final leader.

Vinales took the lead at the end of lap 12, having cut his way through from ninth, where he ended up after being caught on the outside of a Jorge Martin-Francesco Bagnaia duel in turn one. Once Aprilia’s Vinales took the lead, he made the final part of the race look like Saturday’s Sprint, the #12 going unrivalled to the flag to become the first rider to win MotoGP-era premier class races on motorcycles from three different manufacturers.

Behind Vinales, Pedro Acosta shone again. He finished second, and battled throughout the race with Jorge Martin, Marc Marquez, and Francesco Bagnaia, but none of those Ducati riders could live with KTM’s newest star down the stretch. Two podiums in two for the reigning Moto2 Champion.

The battle for third came down to Jorge Martin and Enea Bastianini. Martin had led in the middle of the race, but started dropping back more or less as Vinales arrived in the lead battle. He faded towards the end, and Bastianini took advantage, and took second place in the championship standings as a result.

Francesco Bagnaia missed the podium for the second race in succession, finishing fifth despite being in the podium battle early on. The preseason promise shown by Bagnaia is yet to be translated into something meaningful in the championship. Lusail seems distant now for the rider on whom Ducati has already spent the majority of its 2025-26 salary budget.

Fabio Di Giannantonio made it four Ducatis in-a-row by finishing sixth, ahead of Aleix Espaegaro in seventh. Marco Bezzecchi took eighth place, ahead of Brad Binder in ninth, and Raul Fernandez who rounded out the top 10 in the Trackhouse team’s first home GP.

Full MotoGP results from the Grand Prix of the Americas are below.

2024 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Grand Prix Results

Sprint

Maverick Vinales cruised to a second-straight MotoGP Sprint win in Texas, leading from lights-to-flag in what turned into a fairly spread-out race.

Vinales made a good start and the holeshot, and was able to break the resolve of Marc Marquez after a couple of laps. He led by over two seconds for the whole second half of the race, and won comfortably in the end, despite a mistake at turn 12.

While Vinales was clearing off, there was a decent battle for second brewing in the middle of the race, with Marc Marquez holding off Pedro Acosta as Jorge Martin closed in in fourth place. Martin kind of ruined it somewhat, though - Acosta passed Marquez at turn seven, but Marquez retaliated at turn eight, allowing Martin to be close enough to lunge the rookie at turn 11. After that, none of them got within a second of the other, and they finished in-order: Marquez, Martin, Acosta.

Aleix Espargaro took fifth place, having passed Enea Bastianini. Bastianini was also passed by Martin early in the race, meaning that in a race of very few overtakes the #23 still managed to be passed twice, finishing sixth in the end, ahead of Jack Miller on the leading Red Bull KTM in seventh.

Francesco Bagnaia’s race was more or less run from the moment he released the clutch. The bike jumped off the line, and he went backwards to turn one. He then spent most of the race in 10th, before those battling ahead wore their tyres out, and he caught them at the end. He finished eighth, but it was another totally underwhelming race from the reigning champion.

Raul Fernandez lost that eighth place to Bagnaia on the final lap at turn 11, and finished ninth for the Trackhouse Aprilia team in its first home ‘race’. Franco Morbidelli rounded out the top 10.

Full MotoGP results from the Sprint in Austin are below.

2024 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Sprint Results

Qualifying

Maverick Vinales made it three pole sitters in the first three races of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship, and made a bit of history with it, too, in qualifying for the Grand Prix of the Americas.

Vinales left it until his final run of Q2 to set his best time, an historic 2:00.864. As is customary at the moment in MotoGP, the pole position time was also a lap record, with Vinales breaking the previous record, a 2:01.892 by Francesco Bagnaia last year, by over one second. Vinales’ time was also the first occasion a MotoGP bike has lapped the Circuit of the Americas in under 121 seconds, and indicates some promising consistency from the #12, who also qualified on the front row in the Portuguese Grand Prix.

Pedro Acosta confirmed his impressive performance this weekend with second place, after ending Friday in the top six. The Spanish rookie qualified on the front row for the first time in MotoGP, and one place ahead of his veteran compatriot, Marc Marquez, who took his top three qualifying with the Gresini Ducati team.

Francesco Bagnaia’s qualifying of 2024 is a picture of consistency: fourth at the Qatar Grand Prix, fourth in Portimao, and now fourth in Austin. Probably not the position Bagnaia would have liked to have three-peated at the beginning of this season, but he will start alongside his factory Ducati teammate, Enea Bastianini, in fifth, and Jorge Martin in sixth. Martin would have been a contender for pole, but he crashed twice on his first run, including one on the exit of turn 18 which fortunately for him laid him down on the low-side rather than flicking him over the top.

Aleix Espargaro heads up row three in seventh, ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio in eighth and Franco Morbidelli in a season-best ninth. Marco Bezzecchi rounds out the qualifying top 10, ahead of Jack Miller in 11th and Alex Marquez, who failed to set a valid lap, in 12th.

Full MotoGP results from qualifying in Austin are below.

2024 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Qualifying Results

Friday Practice

It was an impressive first day of MotoGP in the US for Pedro Acosta, who starred in both Friday practice sessions for MotoGP at the 2024 Grand Prix of the Americas, but it was Jorge Martin who topped the times at the end of the day.

Acosta spent a couple of stints at the top of the times in FP1 on Friday morning, before ending it in third place. By the end of day one, Acosta was the only KTM rider in the top 10 in fifth place, having followed Francesco Bagnaia on the reigning champion’s best lap at the end of Practice.

Bagnaia had been outside of the top 10 after his first time attack run in Practice, but went third with his final run. He was then displaced to fourth when Marc Marquez took the third spot from Bagnaia with his own final lap.

But the day was taken by Jorge Martin, who only needed one time attack to beat Bagnaia’s pole record from 2023 by almost half-a-second. Maverick Vinales ran Martin the closest, finishing 0.076 seconds behind the #89 on Friday afternoon.

While Acosta rounded out the top five, Aleix Espargaro was sixth for Aprilia, ahead of Franco Morbidelli who made Q2 for the first time since joining Pramac Ducati for the 2024 season.

Enea Bastianini was eighth, ahead of the VR46 Ducati duo: Fabio Di Giannantonio in ninth, then Marco Bezzecchi in 10th.

Acosta’s speed was unmatchable by the rest of the KTM riders. Brad Binder finished Practice in 14th, ahead of Augusto Fernandez in 15th, and Jack Miller in 16th. Only the six Japanese bikes - Yamahas leading Hondas - were behind the non-Acosta RC16s.

Full MotoGP results from FP1 and Practice in Austin are below.

2024 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | PR Results

2024 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | FP1 Results

MotoGP Americas GP Schedule

The 2024 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas will be the only race of the championship to take place west of Europe this year, and comes only a couple of weeks after the announcement of the acquisition of Dorna Sports by American media company Liberty Media.

Jorge Martin leads the Riders' Championship by 18 points coming into this weekend's Americas GP following his dominant lights-to-flag victory in the Portuguese Grand Prix.

The full on-track session schedule for this weekend's race is below. Times are shown in BST.

2024 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas Times

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas

The 2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas was one of the most notable of the season, even if the actual race was fairly spread out. Luca Marini passed Fabio Quartararo late on for P2 and his first MotoGP podium, Quartararo wrangled a top three finish from his YZR-M1, and Alex Rins took Honda's only win of the 2023 season after Francesco Bagnaia crashed out of the lead.

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | Grand Prix Results

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | Sprint Results

2023 MotoGP Grand Prix of the Americas | Circuit of the Americas | Qualifying Results

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