While Marc Marquez romped to his and Honda's ඣsecond victory of the season at the Americas MotoGP, team-mate Pol Espargaro could only manage tenth place, 20𝓰-seconds adrift.

Espargaro had been a promising fourth after Friday practice but his pace was then liꦓmited by front-end problems, which continued into the race.

Starting twelfth, Espargaro made earꦍly progress to ninth before tyre graining kicked-in.

"We started the weekend very good. On Friday afternoo🎀n, the pace was nice. But then we started to feel problems with the front," he explained.

"After thℱe crash I lost the front confidence and our bike, well my bike, was pushing quite a lot to the front tyre, more than it should during the race.

"I was hammering the frontܫ in the first laps, and after 6-7 laps I started to feel the graining in the front and couldn't really turn as fast as I wished. I started to struggle a lot, and then I was just cruising.

"Ten laps to the end, I couldn't push the front and I wasn't turning and I could just brake late and that's it. I had not so many weapons to fight with, and it wasꦿ a d🤪isaster race."

A best of fifth place during his debut Repsol Honda season so far, Espargaro will return to Europe for the final three rounds 🦩just 15th in the world championship standings, sandwiched between LCR Honda riders Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez.