A test rider’s job is to push the bike to the limit and find out what’s working and what’s not. That process usually takes place in private, but with Pramac Racing’s Miguel Oliveira sidelined with an injury, factory Yamaha test rider Augusto Fernandez was pressed into racing mode with the Pramac squad at the Red Bull Grand Prix of The Americas.
It had been a hectic few weeks for Fernandez, who was dropped into the factory Yamaha Superbike World Championship team after Jonathan Rea suffered a brutal foot injury and was out of action. Then, after testing the YZF-R1 Superbike in Portugal, Oliveira was injured and Fernandez was pulled from the Superbike team and slotted into the Pramac MotoGP team.
Fernandez put in lap after lap in the wet on Friday while others sat in the garage and pushed hard enough for his YZR-M1 to throw him out of the saddle on Saturday morning. In a media appearance later, Fernandez said he was still adapting from the KTM RC16 that he rode for Tech3 last season, which could take a lot of throttle early in corner exit, to the Yamaha, which responded better to pushing the front more.
Marc Marquez was quickest in the cold morning sessions on Saturday, but by the time the MotoGP Sprint race started, the temperature had soared, grip levels dropped, and the eight-time World Champion nearly threw his factory Desmosedici to the ground on the first lap. He dropped two places into third, with brother Alex Marquez and factory teammate Francesco Bagnaia sweeping past, but two turns later, Marc had shoved his way back to the front for good.
Alex Marquez finished second in the sprint, his fifth second-place finish in five starts in 2025, and is second in the Championship and leading the Independent Rider standings by a full Grand Prix race win’s worth of points over Franco Morbidelli. With Ducati parking its Desmosedici GP25 and racing in 2025 on updated GP24s, Alex, on a year-old but Championship-winning Desmosedici GP24, is finally on truly front-running machinery in MotoGP. Racing his entire career in the shadow of brother Marc, Alex is taking the opportunity to demonstrate exactly how talented he actually is.
Jake Dixon, on a roll from his Moto2 win in Argentina, has led every session at Circuit of The Americas, in the cold and wet and in the dry and hot, and in Austin took pole for the first time in 2025.
David Munoz was fast but crashed in Thailand and retired after leading a practice session in Argentina, but showed that his speed at both events was no fluke by taking the Moto3 pole in Austin. Munoz led a KTM 1-2-3-4-5, with Luca Lunetta the fastest rider on a Honda.
The Kramer APX-350 MA racebike used in the MotoAmerica Talent Cup is designed to “provide Grand Prix performance for a fraction of the cost,” according to the company’s website. In its first race outing, the Kramer, with Ella Dreher aboard, was clocked at 124.4 miles per hour in Race Two at Circuit of The Americas. That compares to an average top speed of about 142 mph for the front-running Moto3 competitors on Saturday at COTA. The lap time for pole for the Moto3 class was a 2:14.422, while pole for the Talent Cup was a 2:29.199.
The Kramer, powered by a 55-horsepower KTM EXC-F 350cc single-cylinder engine, costs $22,485. A 250cc single-cylinder Moto3 machine’s cost is capped by the regulations at approximately $194,000 (depending on the exchange rate between the Euro and the U.S. dollar), which includes a single chassis (approximately $108,000) and a six-engine package at approximately $86,000 that includes two throttle bodies and three transmissions for a two-rider team. Individual engines can be purchased for just shy of $13,000 each, throttle body and transmission included.
