The coup de grace happened
with five laps to go at the end
of the back straight, the Italian
using Italian horsepower to rip
past Quartararo's Yamaha and
into a final second place.
Rins went on to take the win,
his second success at COTA in
his MotoGP career by 3.4 sec
-
onds from Marini with Quartara-
ro taking his first podium since
Malaysia last
year.
Maverick Vinales (Aprilia Rac-
ing) took a well-earned fourth
from
Oliveira in fifth, Bezzecchi
took sixth to retain his champi-
onship lead and Johann Zarco
(Alma Pramac
Ducati) was
seventh.
Rounding out the top 10 was
Franco Morbidelli (Monster
"I was trying to push as hard
as possible to follow Pecco,"
said Rins. "When he crashed, I
started to push and follow my
pace.
"Yesterday, I finished the
Sprint much more tired. Today
I was able to keep my concen
-
tration and make few mistakes
because
the wind was blowing
in the opposite direction, and
it was throwing the bike off. I
made a mistake at turn 14, when
I went wide. Then Marini caught
me a little bit, but I thought I had
to keep pushing and managed
to do it."
"For the second weekend in a
row, I crashed," Bagania said. "I
can't give myself an explanation,
making it even harder to accept.
I made a mistake, but at the mo
-
ment, I don't understand what it
was. It was
a very strange fall,
and now I will ask my team to
analyze the data well to under-
stand what happened. I know
the championship is
still very
long, but we have thrown away
45 points in the last two GPs,
and it is definitely not the best."
Rins thus took command of
the race and began to stretch
the pace, pulling over two
seconds clear from Quartararo
and Marini as the latter began
to mount a serious challenge for
second place.
ROUND 3 / APRIL 14-16, 2023
CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS / AUSTIN, TX
MOTOGP I FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP
P78
Miguel Oliveira had a heroic
weekend on his comeback ride
with two top-seven finishes.
