This year’s Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas is set to kick off at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, from April 14 through 16, 2023. It may be the third race on the calendar, but at least three riders are still recovering from things that took place during the season opener in Portimão, Portugal back in March. As a result, two top riders won’t be competing at Austin in 2023, and the possibility of competing is still up in the air for a third as of April 12, 2023.
2023 marked the premiere of MotoGP sprint races, and unfortunately for Enea Bastianini, an injury-related time-out for at least the first three MotoGP rounds of the season. The Ducati rider suffered a nasty crash during the sprint race at Portimão, colliding with Luca Marini. Bastianini broke his right scapula in the crash and missed out both the remaining Portuguese GP weekend, as well as Argentina the following weekend. On April 11, 2023, Ducati announced that Bastianini’s doctor had advised that he will need a few more weeks to recover from that injury—so he’ll be missing out on the Grand Prix of the Americas, as well.
Who else won’t we see on the grid in Austin? In an incident early on during the 2023 Portuguese Grand Prix, Marc Marquez, Miguel Oliveira, and Jorge Martin were all busy battling for podium positions. Marquez had started on pole, but soon found himself in fourth after the first couple of laps, which was obviously not what he wanted.
We can’t know what Marquez was thinking, but what we can tell you (and what you can see clearly in video from the incident) is that Marquez crashed into Oliveira from behind, also clipping Jorge Martin in the process. Both Marquez and Oliveira were out after that crash, and Oliveira clearly took the worst of the damage as he was punted off his bike hard on track.
Earlier this week, the Box Repsol Honda team issued an official statement saying that Marc Marquez and his medical team are avoiding unnecessary risks in the healing of Marquez’ broken first metacarpal. As a result, he will not be racing at Austin.
Meanwhile, Miguel Oliveira, who suffered tendon damage in that monster crash with Marquez at Portimão, has already flown to Austin in hopes that he will be declared medically fit to compete in the Austin MotoGP round. He was unable to compete in the Argentinian GP after submitting for medical checks, but he’s hoping to get back to racing as soon as possible.
“I’m obviously excited to start the trip to the US. It was a shame for me to have missed the Argentina GP, but I’m really looking forward to start again working with the team and discover the bike again on this track,” Oliveira said in a statement.
“It has not been an easy track for me in the past, so I hope that this year I can start turning things around and start the weekend strong. To score points in both the Sprint and the main race would be really nice and of course important after not being able to do anything the last three opportunities basically. So, overall, I’m very excited,” he added.
