MotoGP Austin: Alex Rins can confirm himself as a danger for Marc Marquez at Honda this weekend

Announcing a withdrawal for Marc Marquez is certainly always a disappointment, but formalizing another absence from a Grand Prix such as that of the Americas is certainly heartbreaking. During his time of splendor, the eight-time World Champion had in fact made this route his private preserve and, now back in good shape, he certainly intended to reestablish his authority there this year to relaunch himself in the championship. But there was Portimao, his accident, his injury and the political turmoil that followed. The opportunity will therefore be missed for the Repsol pilot to draw a line under the dark period that began in 2020, but as nature abhors a vacuum, it is an opportunity that can be seized by Alex Rins who also showed that 'he could be an ace in Texas. The former Suzuki driver, and now LCR driver, is offered a great opportunity to sow even more trouble at Honda…

This risk, Marc Marquez evaluates it too. The results of MM93 since 2020, the year of his accident at Jerez, will want that with this new package this weekend, he will only have participated in 28 of 55 races that have taken place since his crash at Jerez three years ago. 2020 was a blank year, in 2021 he missed the first two rounds but finished the year with 14 participations out of 18 races. He won three times and was forced to stop after his last triumph at Misano, when he crashed during an enduro training session, leading to another episode of diplopia. Which made him miss the last two races.

In 2022, Marc Marquez took part in 12 of the 20 Grands Prix on the calendar. In five races he placed in the top five, with a podium finish of second at Phillip Island, which was his best result of the year. An accident during the Indonesian warm-up brought back the diplopia. He missed two races and, upon his return, he participated in five competitions but decided to stop after Mugello to undergo a fourth operation on his right arm. He returned to Aragon but finished the season missing eight races.

Alex Rins is the most successful in Austin after Marc Marquez

Here we are in 2023. After a fiery debut marked by a pole position at the inaugural Portuguese Grand Prix and a podium at the end of the first Sprint race in history, he caused an accident during the Sunday Grand Prix, reopening the series of injuries. Package in Argentina, he will therefore be absent again this weekend in Austin. The Grand Prix of the Americas is considered the “playing field” of Marc Marquez, who won all the races there MotoGP since his arrival in the World Championship in 2013 until 2018.

Since then, three other MotoGP races have taken place at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA), Marc Marquez, alex rins et Enea Bastianini having won them. But the absence of Marc Marquez in Texas, where he won seven of the nine races, confirms that he will not achieve his eighth victory on the North American circuit this year. Enea Bastianini also package will no longer have the opportunity to celebrate a second collective success. So stay alex rins...

alex rins is the second driver with the most victories in Austin. He established himself in 2013 in Moto3, in Moto2 in 2016 and 2019 in MotoGP. In other words, Kidneys knows what it's like to win at COTA with three different bikes and in different categories... If we consider the track record of Kidneys in Austin in the premier category alone, the Spanish driver finished three races, retiring in two others. He ranked very well in each of them: 1st in 2019, 4th in 2021 and 2nd in 2022. Promising results which place him on the list of drivers to follow this weekend. There is no doubt that Marc Marquez will look at this closely, and will no doubt observe which chassis will use this bulky brand companion which only asks to climb on the Kalex tests a few days earlier in Jerez...