AUSTIN (Texas): Marc Marquez reasserted his mastery of the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday, winning MotoGP’s Grand Prix of the Americas for the seventh time.

Marquez, starting third on the grid, seized the lead at the start and relentlessly powered to victory over championship leader Fabio Quartararo of France.

Marquez never allowed Quartararo a look-in, but the Yamaha rider pushed his lead in the standings to 52 points over Italian Ducati rider Francesco Bagnaia, who finished third.

With just three races left this season — and with 25 points on offer to the winner of each one — Quartararo is within touching distance of a first MotoGP world title.

“The plan exactly was like I did the race,” said a beaming Marquez, the six-time world champion who won the first six races held at the Austin, Texas, circuit but fell off while leading in 2019.

The event was cancelled last season when he was recuperating after breaking his right arm in a crash, and his front-row start was his first since his return to the sport.

“Start well, be first in the first corner, be slow the first two laps and then when the tires drop a little bit start to push,” the Honda rider said of the pre-race plan. “That’s exactly what I did.”

By the halfway stage he was more than two seconds up on Quartararo, who started from the middle of the front row and finished 4.679sec behind.

Bagnaia, starting from pole for the third straight race, was running fourth with a few laps remaining, when his pressure on Jorge Martin finally caused the rookie to cut two corners and draw a long-lap penalty that secured Bagnaia’s place on the podium.

Quartararo will have the chance to become France’s first MotoGP world champion at the next race at Misano in Italy on Oct 24.

Published in Dawn, October 5th, 2021