MotoGP Silverstone: Marco Bezzecchi Tops the Times on Friday. Marc Marquez Keeps a Low Profile, Pecco Bagnaia Struggles
Friday’s MotoGP pre-qualifying session at Silverstone ended with Marco Bezzecchi in first place. The Aprilia rider from Romagna set the fastest time of the session, 1:56.280, 335 thousandths of a second ahead of Raul Fernandez (Aprilia Trackhouse) and 398 thousandths of a second ahead of the top Ducati rider, Fabio Di Giannantonio (Team VR46). A full half-second behind is Bezzecchi’s teammate, World Championship leader Jorge Martin, who finished fourth.
Rounding out an excellent day for Aprilia is Ai Ogura in fifth place on the other Trackhouse team bike (+0.530). Behind him was Marc Marquez, who had a rather lackluster session with a time of 1:57.013, +0.733 behind Bezzecchi. The nine-time world champion is, however, directly through to Q2 along with the other riders in the Top 10: Alex Marquez (Ducati Gresini, +0.750), Joan Mir (Honda, +0.831), Jack Miller (Yamaha Pramac, +1.042), and Pedro Acosta (KTM, +1.083).
Enea Bastianini (KTM Tech3, +1.312), Luca Marini (Honda, +1.325), Pecco Bagnaia, who finished just 13th on his factory Ducati (+1.411), Franco Morbidelli (Ducati VR46, +1.473), Diogo Moreira (Honda LCR, +1.487), Iker Lecuona (Ducati Gresini, +1.494), Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha, +1.636), Brad Binder (KTM, +1.640), Alex Rins (Yamaha, +1.718), Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda, +1.900), Pol Espargaró (KTM Tech3, +2.042), Toprak Razgatlioglu (Yamaha Pramac, +2.341), and Augusto Fernández (Yamaha, +2.550).
The British Grand Prix is one of the most anticipated events on the MotoGP calendar: after a very long stint at Donington Park from 1987 to 2009, it returned in 2010 to its original location, the Silverstone circuit, which had previously hosted the Grand Prix from 1977 to 1986. The rider with the most wins overall is Valentino Rossi, both when considering MotoGP alone (4 wins between 2002 and 2015) and when including the other classes (he has 8 total wins in Great Britain). Last year, Alex Marquez won the Sprint race, and Marco Bezzecchi won the Grand Prix.
