Marquez and Pedrosa begin action at Silverstone
One can always rely on British weather to have a say in the day’s plans, but luckily enough, today at Silverstone the rain waited to fall until just after the end of the MotoGP FP2 session. That being the case, the Repsol Honda riders had two dry sessions to make their first steps on the newly resurfaced circuit and start their work for Sunday’s 1 p.m. British GP.
Following his usual work path, Marc Marquez spent the entire morning session on the same set of tyres, recording the 10th fastest time before moving up to fourth overall in the afternoon stint.
Dani Pedrosa also improved his speed over the day, reducing his gap to the top by over a second, though he moved up just two positions, from his morning 17th place to 15th at day’s end.
Marc Marquez
“I’m very happy with today’s final outcome because this morning we didn’t have the best start to the weekend; I didn’t feel comfortable on the bike and also had a small slide that didn’t help. We struggled with the bumps, wind and new asphalt because last year’s base setup wasn’t working so well anymore. We did a recheck of everything and made a huge step from FP1 to FP2. We understood the direction to follow, which is very positive; the team has done a great job. We must continue this way tomorrow as there are a few things we have to improve further, but the important thing is that we’re right there again, not far from the top. Tomorrow we’ll try to get a front-row start, but if that’s not possible, we must do not worse than the second row because with a high chance of rain on Sunday, it will be important to start near the front.”
Dani Pedrosa
"I hoped to have a better feeling on the new asphalt but unfortunately there still some bumps on the track, and with the addition of some wind, the bike was moving around quite a lot. We actually made an improvement in the afternoon and recovered up to a top-10 place, but at the very end of the session, we didn’t make that final step that would have allowed us to keep it. Tomorrow we’ll try to improve the bike’s setup further and also work on tyre choice, as we have an extra spec here that we need to test.”
Combined Free Practice Times
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
|---|
Location Information
The Silverstone Circuit is long, fast and flowing, with a lot of fast changes of direction and a mixture of corners: the stadium section from Abbey through the Loop to Aintree is tight and technical, Woodcote and Copse are long and fast, the Maggotts/Becketts complex a bit of both. It… read more.
| Length | 5.900 kilometres / 3.666 miles |
| Width | 17 metres |
| Left corners | 8 |
| Right corners | 10 |
| Longest straight | 0.770 kilometres / 0.478 miles |
| Constructed | 1948 |
| Modified | 2011 |
Silverstone Circuit, Towcester, United Kingdom - View in Google Maps
Records
| Pole Position | 1m 57.767s (180.3 km/h) Johann Zarco (Ducati, 2022) |
| Race Lap | 1m 59.346s (177.9 km/h) Alex Rins (Suzuki, 2022) |
| Race Time | 40m 10.260s (176.2 km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2022) |
| 2023 Race Winner | Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) |
| 2023 Sprint Winner | Alex Marquez (Ducati) |
