Lap 8 of 20 ticked by and a 2:04.368 was slammed in by Marc Marquez, his lead was now up to 1.5s over Quartararo. With 11 to go, that gap had been stretched to 2.3s, with Quartararo a second clear of Martin. Miller was half a second down on his fellow Ducati rider, and 1.3s behind was Pecco, who had started to find some rhythm – the Italian passing Rins.

Pecco then latched onto the back of teammate Miller, before the latter allowed Pecco through with every point in the title race absolutely critical at this stage, especially with Quartararo P2 with eight laps remaining. Now, the question was: could Bagnaia catch and pass Martin for third? With four laps to go, the gap was suddenly nothing, with Martin seemingly looking down at his dashboard a few times. Was Martin struggling, or were Ducati intervening? Well, it wouldn’t matter in the end, with Martin being handed a Long Lap Penalty for not losing enough time at Turns 4 and 5 when he had a front end moment.  In the end though, Captain America returned to reign once again in Austin. Marc Marquez gave Repsol Honda Team their 450th premier class podium with a classy ride at COTA, as Quartararo takes a second place that gives him his first match point of the season next time out at Misano. Bagnaia recovered well to claim P3, but its ground lost in the Championship chase.