Marquez smashes Silverstone lap record to seize British Grand Prix pole position; Rossi starts on P4

Repsol Honda Team’s Marc Marquez smashed his own Silverstone Circuit Best Lap record to claim his sixth pole position of the MotoGP season ahead of Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Jorge Lorenzo and his Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa.

On his first flying lap in Qualifying Practice 2, Marquez set the quickest ever lap at Silverstone to take provisional pole position, but after fitting a new medium compound rear slick for this second time attack went even quicker, setting a 2’00.234 to slice 0.457 off the existing Circuit Best Lap record. Lorenzo’s best lap time of 2’00.522 was also under the previous Silverstone lap record and secured second place on the grid for the British Grand Prix, while Pedrosa claimed the third qualifying position by virtue of being the only other rider to set a time within half a second of Marquez, his 2’00.716 being 0.482 seconds off the pace. All three riders that qualified on the front row of the grid used the combination of the soft compound front and medium compound rear to set their quickest times.

Silverstone was blessed again with fine and mild conditions throughout the day, with a peak track temperature of 35°C reached this afternoon during Free Practice 4; 5 degrees higher than yesterday’s peak. The fine weather allowed the riders to test a variety of tyre combinations and although race tyre choice will be determined by tomorrow’s weather, two tyre options emerged as the most likely race options. The soft compound front slick provides the best balance of cornering and braking performance at Silverstone and it is expected that it will be used by the vast majority of riders for the race. For the rear tyre, the medium compound slick is the most popular option although the soft compound rear slick is working very well for the Aprilia, Suzuki and open class riders and the hard compound option could feature on some Factory Honda and Yamaha machinery after Marc Marquez set some fast, consistent laps on this option during FP4.

The twenty-lap British Grand Prix will start at 1300 local time tomorrow (GMT +1) with the next MotoGP™ session, morning Warm Up starting at 0930.

“It was very good that today’s weather conditions were the same as yesterday as it enabled the riders to do some comparison work with different front and rear tyres. The feedback from today shows that the soft compound front tyre will be the most popular race choice as it provides the best balance of cornering & braking performance and reaches its ideal operating temperature quickly. For the rear tyre, the medium compound rear slick – which is a different specification to the medium rear slick we brought to Silverstone last year – proved to be very popular, but the soft and hard compound rear slicks are also working well with some different machine and rider combinations. I think we will have to wait and see what the weather brings tomorrow before the riders will confirm their race tyre choice, but the positive aspect for Bridgestone is that all of our slick tyre specifications are working well so the riders have many viable options for the race.”