Portuguese rider Miguel Oliveira (Aprilia) recovered seven positions this Saturday in the sprint race of the MotoGP Americas Grand Prix, finishing eighth in a race won by Italy’s Francesco Bagna (Ducati).
Oliveira, who started in 15th place, completed 10 laps of the Texas circuit 10.768 seconds back from the winner, the Spaniard Alex Rins (Honda) was second with a result of 2.545 seconds, and his compatriot Jorge Martin (Ducati) was third with a result of 4706 seconds.
The Ducati rider started from 12th position, but managed to win back nine positions.
Miguel Oliveira also started well and by the end of the first lap he was already in 10th position.
He will benefit from the fall of Spaniard Alex Márquez (Ducati) in the last laps to move up to ninth place, as well as pass France’s Johann Zarco (Ducati) to eighth place ahead of Australian Jack Miller, his KTM replacement.
Spaniards Marc Marquez (Honda) and Paul Espargaro (GasGas), as well as Italian Enea Bastianini (Ducati) did not participate in this third round of the MotoGP World Championship due to injuries.
They were replaced by test riders of the respective brands, German Stefan Bradl (Honda), Spaniard Jonas Volger (GasGas) and Italian Michel Pirro (Ducati), who blamed the lack of speed. Pirro withdrew due to a fall, Bradle was 18th (third from last) and Folger 20th and last.
With these results, Italy’s Marco Besecchi (Ducati), who was sixth this Saturday with four points, maintains the championship lead with 54 points, one more than Francesco Bagnai, who lost in the previous round in Argentina.
Miguel Oliveira, who missed the Argentine race due to injury, is now in 18th place with five points.
On Sunday, the main race takes place, the start order of which is the same as in the sprint.
Bagnaya was the author of the “pole position”, breaking the record of the American circuit, having completed a circle in 2,01,892 minutes.
Transalpine became the first rider to drop from 2.02 minutes at this track.
Miguel Oliveira failed to qualify in the second quarter, the second stage of qualifying for which the top 10 in Friday’s free practice and the two fastest in the first quarter qualified.
In this first stage, the rider from Almada was fifth, 0.678 seconds behind Zarco, who was the fastest at the time.
The American Grand Prix is the third of 21 races in the 2023 season.