Not that we want to put the mouth on him, but California boy Joe Roberts had a great Friday in Portugal, leading free practices 1 and 2 by 0.041 and then 0.317 seconds. Read all about it here. And pay no attention to our lead image, as that’s Sam Lowes leading Wayne’s kid, Remy Gardner.
In other developments, Marc Marquez was sixth-fastest on his first day back on a MotoGP bike.
But there are zero Americans in MotoGP, so we’ll feign disinterest and turn our attention to Triumph’s Moto2 Portimao pre-race briefing, in which we learn that even though California-kid Joe Roberts finished the first Doha round this year in 6th place, and the second round in 10th ? his pole position lap record from last year still stands. That’s in spite of the fact that the Doha Grand Prix (round 2) was 7.5 seconds faster than the 2020 race, and that the fastest race lap was 0.3 seconds faster than last year. That’s gotta count for something! Meanwhile, our other fellow American, multi-time MotoAmerica Superbike champ Cameron Beaubier, finished 11th in round one and crashed out of race two. In Portimao, he’s 22nd in FP2. It’s always good to leave room for improvement. He’s on Roberts’ last year’s American Racing Kalex.
Cameron Beaubier, Moto2, Doha MotoGP 2 April 2021
Here’s a pic of Joe and his dad from an interview we did last year, from more than a couple years ago.

Triumph also informs us, via its Doha recap, that:

Sa...