In the morning MotoGP session at the Red Bull Grand Prix of The United States, Ducati Lenovo’s Marc Marquez lost the front just as he touched the gas coming over the crest of Turn 10 and hit the ground at just under 120 mph and plowed into the Roadracing World Action Fund-supplied Alpina soft barriers. Bruised and sore, he went back out and within a couple of laps regained his rhythm, he said. In the afternoon, he was quickest, and showed up at the post-session media conference with bandages on both arms. The surface at COTA changes from year to year, and Marquez says he was caught out by new bumps that had emerged there and elsewhere on the track.
There were nine crashes in Friday’s afternoon session. Trackhouse Racing’s Ai Ogura hit the deck, but scuffed leathers and all, he finished the day as the top Aprilia rider, second overall and only 0.053-second behind Marquez.
Coming off of a double podium in Brazil, Pertamina Enduro VR46 Racing’s Fabio Di Giannantonio was consistently quick all day and finished the afternoon session third.
Championship leader Marco Bezzecchi took his factory Aprilia to fourth on Friday afternoon after working in the morning session on tire wear and data. While he did three runs in the morning, he did them all on the same set of medium front and rear Michelin slicks and finished ninth.
Alex Marquez was another of the crashers in the afternoon session but looked more comfortable aboard his 2026-spec Gresini Racing Ducati Desmosedici GP26. Running the latest equipment means spending more time optimizing it, and Alex Marquez seems to be coming to terms with riding a bike that is still being developed.
American Joe Roberts finished the afternoon Moto2 session in 10th place, almost exactly a second off of the quickest time.
The Harley-Davidson Bagger World Cup got off to a quiet start, with only nine riders taking to the track in the series’ inaugural event. And the locals were unable to convert the home court advantage to their favor, with Jake Lewis the quickest of the U.S. riders. On his Saddlemen Racing Development machine, Lewis finished qualifying in fourth, 2.1 seconds behind Eric Granado.
Maverick Vinales withdrew from the event because a screw in his left shoulder had come loose. His Red Bull KTM Tech3 teammate Enea Bastiannini crashed twice in the afternoon session but still finished 10th-quickest and transfered directly to final qualifying for the first time since Barcelona in 2025.
Kensei Matsudaira led the first Talent Cup session, dropped to fourth in the second and finished the day by qualifying in second place, just behind Nathan Gouker. Jake Paige was third-quickest in qualifying but was penalized a position for an alleged track limits violation, bumping him back to fourth and moving San Drane up into third. Reese Frankenfield qualified fifth-quickest.
