Fresh mornings are marking the conditions during this Americas Grand Prix weekend. But with rising temperatures, also the tension was rising at the Circuit of the Americas on Saturday. Hot and windy weather greeted riders and teams for the all-important Qualifying sessions this afternoon.
Although he managed to improve his fastest lap from Friday by 0.336 seconds in FP3 this morning, Andrea Dovizioso concluded the combined Free Practice sessions in P16, which means he had to compete in Q1 again in the afternoon. Although the temperatures have been high, the Italian did a decent lap to finish in fifth, which made him miss out on a potential Q2 spot by just 0.410 seconds. He’ll start the Grand Prix of the Americas from row five tomorrow, his best starting position to date.
In the meantime, Darryn Binder was learning a lot throughout Saturday. The premier class rookie faced some tough sessions today, having ridden his last race at the COTA in the Moto3 class. Yet, he improved his fastest lap time from Friday by 0.383 seconds this morning and was on his way to go even quicker in Qualifying, but unfortunately went down in turn three. The South African will start his fourth MotoGP race from the eighth row of the grid.
The big final rodeo ride overseas, before the paddock returns to Europe will be kicked off tomorrow at 13:00 local time (20:00 CET) with a demanding distance of 20 laps at the 5.5-kilometer circuit close to Austin, that is known as the live music capital of the world.
