There are many potential historical milestones that could occur in the MotoGP class Grand Prix race on the American CoTA circuit in 2024. However, Maverick Vinales’ perfect victory in Sunday’s race which only finished a few hours ago is the most viral historical mark that occurred at the 2024 American MotoGP. Maverick Vinales achieved his first win since Qatar 2021, his 10th win of his MotoGP career, and his first win with Aprilia. BAT MAV made history as the first racer to win with three different manufacturers in the MotoGP era, after previously winning with Suzuki and Yamaha.
Previously, Maverick took Pole Position, became the fastest man in CoTA on a motorbike, and won the Sprint race without being touched by any opponents while setting the best lap time during the race. These various scores clearly make Maverick Vinales not only Man Of The Race on Sunday, but according to TMCBlog he is Man Of The Race Weekend MotoGP America 2024, agree? Oh yes, with Vinales’ victory over Acosta, all current MotoGP manufacturers have now achieved at least one podium at COTA.
Maverick’s victory at CoTA is Aprilia’s fourth victory in the premier class, adding to the three wins scored by Aleix Espargaro and is the first victory since Espargaro in Catalunya in 2023. With his victory, Vinales has now scored 75 podiums in his Grand Prix career. Vinales ends a run of 11 consecutive GP wins for Ducati that started at San Marino in 2023.
From Vinales we move on to Pedro Acosta, where at the time of the race he was 19 years and 325 days old and finished in 2nd place. Indeed, Acosta has not succeeded in breaking the record for the youngest racer to win the MotoGP race in Austin, but there is another record which is also quite good, namely Acosta scored a result. his best in MotoGP in his third race in the primary class. He became the youngest racer to reach the premier class podium twice in a row, surpassing Marc Marquez’s record set in Austin 2013 (aged 20 years 63 days).
Enea Bastianini finished 3rd for his 11th podium in the premier class, and his first in consecutive MotoGP races since San Marino/Aragon in 2022. He has scored all his podiums in the class with Ducati, and he is now in position eighth on the list of Ducati riders with the most podiums, four fewer than Johann Zarco. Ducati should be grateful to Enea because by successfully finishing in third position, Ducati recorded 49 consecutive MotoGP Grand Prix races with at least one rider on the podium.
Reigning MotoGP champion – Francesco Bagnaia finished the race in P5, which was his worst GP finish since Argentina last year when he crashed, remounted and finished P16. The 2024 Portuguese and American GPs also mark the first consecutive races that Bagnaia has started but failed to finish on the podium in both since Argentina/America last year. This is the first MotoGP podium without Bagnaia (P5) or Jorge Martin (P4) since the 2023 American GP when Alex Rins, Luca Marini and Fabio Quartararo were on the podium.
