Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/815139
MOTOGP FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 3 / APRIL 22-23, 2017 CIRCUIT OF THE AMERICAS / AUSTIN, TEXAS P74 My Own Race: 93 MARC MARQUEZ 1ST MOTOGP "This was a crucial race because after Argentina it was important to come back in the best way, so we are really happy with this result," Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) said, summa- rizing his win. "Although I won, it was difficult, because the temperature was much higher than yesterday. Five minutes before the start, I said to my chief mechanic, 'Okay, let's use the hard tire' because I knew that I would push the medium front tire a lot. In the beginning I was just trying to understand the limit because I hadn't tried it a lot on Friday. I was behind Dani and when I saw that he was struggling a little bit and Valentino was challenging, I said, 'Time to attack.' I was able to win, and I'm happy to be back in the championship." 26 DANI PEDROSA 3RD MOTOGP "I'm happy because we made some steps forward today, and overall this weekend was positive," said Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) of his third-place finish. "We made some good improvements from the last races, and also in practice we were higher up in the results. Qualifying still wasn't as good as I'd have liked, but today were able to get a good start and arrive first to turn one. It was the first time I've done that in a while, and I led the race for a few laps, which is good. In the end it was difficult to manage the front tire. I could feel that the right side was finished, so I couldn't prevent Valentino from passing me. After the crash in Argentina, I wanted to avoid losing the front, so I just tried to finish." 29 ANDREA IANNONE 7TH MOTOGP "I'm really happy because finally I got some good feelings back with the bike, but at the same time I'm not happy at all about the first part of the race," Andrea Iannone (Team Suzuki Ecstar) said. "I lost too much time in the first five laps, and then it was hard to recover from that. Afterwards, I found a good pace, but having already lost six or seven seconds, it was too hard to recover any more than I did. There will be a very important test we will do on Monday after Jerez, where we will try some different setup configura- tions that would be impossible to try on a race weekend. For sure this weekend, and es- pecially this morning, we've learned many things. They will be very useful to ensure we arrive in Spain well prepared." 04 ANDREA DOVIZIOSO 6TH MOTOGP "This was a difficult weekend and also in the race we never had the pace that we had hoped for," said Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) of his sixth-place finish. "Pity, because I expected more from this GP, but the result confirms that unfortunately we still have a lot more work to do in order to resolve certain limits of our bike and to be able to stay up there ahead with our rivals at every circuit." 99 JORGE LORENZO 9TH MOTOGP "All in all, the race went better than I expected, at least regarding my pace over practice and qualifying," said Jorge Lorenzo (Ducati). "For sure we cannot be satisfied with the final position, because our target is certainly much higher, but in feeling and pace we made a small step forward in this race. It all went more or less how I expected until the front tire began to have some graining and I lost touch with Dovizioso. Without this problem, I think I could have finished the race right behind him but the situation got worse over the last few laps and both Iannone and Petrucci passed me, so I lost out on seventh right at the end." 21 FRANCO MORBIDELLI 1ST MOTO2 "This is a great moment for me and the team, we are in fantastic shape for the cham- pionship and I hope we can continue in this way," said three-time Moto2 winner Franco Morbidelli (Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 VDS). "It was a nice battle with Álex early and then I tried pulling away and got a 1.5s gap and thought to just control the race. But I messed around too much and then I saw 0.5s to Luthi so I decided to push all the way to the fin- ish. I forgot about trying to control the race and just went for the win."