MotoGP 2015: Marquez takes third consecutive COTA win
Few will forget the sight of Marc Marquez sprinting down the pitlane at the Circuit of the Americas to hop on his spare Honda RC213V-S after his motorcycle gave up on him on the start-finish straight during qualifying. Well, with only enough time for lap, Marquez rode inch perfect and managed to steal pole away from Ducati man Andrea Dovizioso. Along the way Marquez shattered the COTA lap record that he had set in 2014, with a new time of 2min 02.135sec.
All in all, that was a clear sign of just how the Marquez-RC213V-S package was going to be during the race at the COTA. Marquez, having already won the first two races held at the Austin track, wasted no time in getting to the head of the pack this year. When the race started, it was Dovizioso who moved into the race lead, something he had to relinquish to Marquez after five laps. Thereafter there was no threatening Marquez, as the Honda rider increased his lead over the following pack steadily.
Behind him, the battle then fell to Dovizioso and Losail race winner, Valentino Rossi. Rossi managed to overtake Dovizioso, but the Yamaha rider, with lost track position to Dovi on lap 16. Dovi would eventually finish the 21 lap race second, with Rossi third. Of course, two podiums in the first two races of the season mean that Rossi still leads the championship standings with a total of 41 points, one point ahead of Dovizioso. Marquez, with 36 points is third.
There was fighting up and down the grid as well. Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo managed to get past the second Ducati of Andrea Iannone and took fourth place, leaving the Italian rider down in fifth. Bradley Smith was the first of the satellite riders on his Monster Yamaha Tech3 that he took to sixth place, followed by Cal Crutchlow on the CWM LCR Honda in seventh. The two Suzukis of Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales were eighth and ninth respectively, while Danilo Petrucci (who would also offer Iannone a ride back to the pits once he ran out of fuel at the end of the race) rounded off the top 10 on his Pramac Ducati.