MotoGP was back racing in Austin Texas at the iconic Circuit of the Americans (COTA), and a lot happened!
Fabio Di Giannantonio claimed pole position on Saturday with championship leader Marco Bezzecchi second, but handed a two place grid penalty for riding slow on line in Q2.
Pedro Acosta inherited P2 with Francesco Bagnaia P3. Marc Marquez only managed sixth in qualifying so had some work to do to get his Ducati where he needed it.
Sprint race Saturday was Chaos, Di Giannantonio and M Marquez came to blows as Marquez tried to overtake but a slide caught him off guard and took both himself and Di Giannantonio down, Marquez was able to finish the race a lap down but Di Giannantonio had to retire.
Bezzecchi crashed out at turn 11 after lighting the back wheel up with only three laps to go. Joan Mir also crashed out on the last lap as he tried to pass Pedro Acosta for third.
Martin was back on the top step after his last win came in 2024, he overtook Bagnaia on the lap last to beat the Ducati driver.
After crossing the line and starting his cool down lap he crashed doing a celebration wheelie when he lost control of his Aprilia. He also lead the championship after his win
Sunday race day was even more chaotic with both Moto2 and 3 also having races this day.
Moto3 had a new winner in Italian rider Guido Pini. Pini took the win with a drag race to line to win by 0.056.
Moto2 was a whole different level of chaos at COTA, Championship leader Daniel Holgado crashed going into the first corner after hitting Joe Roberts bike and causing him to also crash, but the incident at turn 11 brought out the red flag.
Alberto Ferrandez and Sergio Garcia both crashed down at turn 11 on lap one and caused an incident, luckily no one was badly injured.
After a lengthy red flag, we had a restart and all riders minus Garcia, Angel Piqueras and Alberto Ferrandez made it to the grid. Piqueras and Ferrandez were told to go to the medical centre by race control after the crash, it has been reported that Piqueras has undergone surgery to sort out a left ankle and femur injury.
Moto2 saw Senna Agius win a race he dedicated to a member of his team, with Italian Celestino Vietti in second and Izan Guevara in third.
MotoGP started on time and what a race it was. Acosta, Bezzecchi and Martin all got away cleanly with all three fighting for the lead of the race.
Bezzecchi and Acosta got tangled up with Acosta going wide and Bezzecchi took advantage but Pedro didn’t see him and they collided, luckily both managed to stay on their bikes.
Joan Mir crashed out once again after fighting for positions, it is now the 30th time he has crashed in 58 races with the factory team.
M Marquez had a long lap penalty to serve due to the collision with Di Giannantonio in the sprint, he managed to fight his way back to fifth after dropping to seventh from 4/5th.
Aprilia managed another beautiful 1-2 in the race with KTM driver Acosta settling for fourth.
The next race is set to be in Spain where they will be racing at the iconic Circuito de Jerez on April 24th-26th.
Can anyone stop the Aprilia team?
(Featured image by Victoria Dutton)
Motor Sport Central 
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