Honda
Repsol Honda duo on first row with Marquez taking record breaking pole
Marc Marquez has racked up his sixth pole position of the season with teammate, Dani Pedrosa, clinching third.
It was a good day for the Repsol Honda team at Silverstone today, with both riders qualifying in the top three. Marc set the pace early in the qualifying session while Dani, who paced second fastest for much of the session, finished with the third fastest time.
The reigning MotoGP World Champion made his intentions clear from his first exit, taking the lead with a time of 2’00.564. During his second and final outing, Marc lowered his time to stop the clock at 2’00.234, a record breaking pole position time which he previously set in 2013 (2’00.691), which surpassed Jorge Lorenzo who qualified second by almost three tenths. This is Marc’s 28th pole in the MotoGP class, the only Spanish rider with more poles in the premier-class is Lorenzo with 31.
Dani joins his teammate on the front row in the third position, after being overtaken by Lorenzo in the closing stages of the session. The Respol Honda rider was less than two tenths off of the second position and less than half of a second off pole with his time of 2’00.716.
The British Grand Prix, round twelve of the season, will be held tomorrow at 13h00 local time.
Marc Marquez
1ST 2’00.234
“It was a good qualifying session. When I did the first lap I noticed that if put together the perfect lap, maybe I could get very close to 1’59.00. But I noticed I was right on the limit a couple of times, and especially in the last sector I was missing a little something under braking. In the end what counts is that we took pole position! You can always improve, but it was a very good lap.”
Dani Pedrosa
3RD 2’00.716
“I’m happy because the goal was to be on the front row. It is always important to start well in the first few corners and I hope to catch up with Marc and Jorge. We will be watching the weather, because it is difficult to control the temperature of the tires. Marc’s pace has been very good; I’m a little further behind on used tires, but let’s see how the weather is tomorrow and what we can do. I have to get a good start and take the opening corners well, in order to stay with the front group.”
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Scores First and Second Row in Silverstone Qualifying
Movistar Yamaha MotoGP’s Jorge Lorenzo continued his strong pace at Silverstone today, qualifying second for tomorrow?s British Grand Prix. Teammate Valentino Rossi also gave a solid performance during the tense 15-minute session and took fourth.
Grand Prix of Great Britain
QUALIFYING – Northamptonshire, UK, 29th August 2015
14:35 LOCAL TIME GMT+1
AIR 21°C / TRACK 32°C
CLOUDY / HUMIDITY 48%
2nd JORGE LORENZO
2’00.522 / 6 LAPS
4th VALENTINO ROSSI
2’00.947 / 7 LAPS
Silverstone (UK), 29th August 2015
Jorge Lorenzo continued his impressive pace from the third free practice in the afternoon and rode his Yamaha YZR-M1 to a second place starting position for tomorrow?s British Grand Prix. Teammate Valentino Rossi also made a step today and will start the race at Silverstone from the second row, having qualified fourth on the grid.
Lorenzo was the last rider to come out of the box at the start of the overcast 15-minute session and needed little time to put the hammer down. His first hot lap was a 2?00.798 for provisional second place. He followed that up with a second flying lap, but was unable to improve his time and with five and half minutes left Lorenzo returned to the pits for a fresh rear tyre.
The Spaniard was pushed back to third and cunningly waited for all other riders to exit the pit lane before heading out for his second attempt to improve his starting position. With three and half minutes still on the clock, he had just enough time left for a final try and dropped a hot time of 2?00.522 to reclaim second position, 0,288s off the front.
Teammate Rossi also bided his time at the start of the session to avoid traffic. The nine time World Champion soon dropped under the 2?02 mark with a 2?01.779 and moved up to fifth, but was pushed back a place when the pace picked up. He gave another push and delivered a 2?01.182 moving back up to fifth after which he immediately returned to the pits with a little less than six minutes of the session remaining.
A minute later he was back on track to pick up the pace. He was unable to improve on his time on his third flying lap, but having been pushed back to sixth the Italian was determined to make up ground. He put his head down on his final attempt and rode a strong final sector to secure fourth position clocking a brilliant 2?00.947, 0.713s off pole.
JORGE LORENZO
To be honest, I didn’t expect to improve so much and that everyone would be so quick in qualifying, but it?s normal for everyone to improve their times by one second out of nowhere. If you don?t get the perfect lap or don?t push to your limits, it’s very difficult to stay on the first row. For this reason Im very happy with second place, this is a very good position, I’m very happy. I?m very proud of my two laps. Let’s see which small details we can improve for tomorrow to keep a consistent pace.
VALENTINO ROSSI
Reclaiming the lead in the championship is the target, but it?s going to be difficult because Marc and Jorge are very strong at this track. I?m quite satisfied because we improved the setting of the bike a lot. I?m also happy about my pace and my riding, my performance wasn?t so bad. Our goal was to start the race from the second row, so fourth place is OK, but we need to continue working to improve some other things for tomorrow. Pedrosa is also strong, so if we want to fight for the podium we have to go a bit faster.
MASSIMO MEREGALLI
TEAM DIRECTOR
Another positive day for Jorge. He has shown his consistent speed and pace in all practice sessions and did another good job this afternoon. Valentino also did well today and booked solid progress. Considering the issues he had yesterday we are satisfied to be on the first and second row. The team has worked hard to make an extra step today and we still have the opportunity to improve the set up further for tomorrow. We will continue to work overnight so we can make an extra step during the morning warm up and be ready for the race with a fully competitive package. It?s going to be long and tough race and for sure it will be competitive at the front, so it should be an exciting one to watch.
Aspar
Eugene Laverty ready to launch fight back in ‘home’ race
After a great start to his weekend yesterday the Irishman faces a challenge to take Open victory from nineteenth on the grid.
After taking a free practice session apiece yesterday the battle for pole position was very much on between Marc Márquez and Jorge Lorenzo this afternoon. Márquez took the initiative from the start of the session, followed for much of it by his team-mate Dani Pedrosa until a late effort from Lorenzo secured second on the grid and set up what promises to be another interesting head-to-head in tomorrow’s race. Márquez stayed clear in top spot thanks to a new pole record lap, with Valentino Rossi in fourth place behind Pedrosa, ensuring a fight for the podium between the four so-called ‘aliens’.
After a disappointing qualifying session the grid positions for the two POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar do not reflect their performance throughout the rest of the weekend, with Eugene Laverty and Nicky Hayden having made consistent improvements to their lap times and set-up right up until this afternoon. The Irishman ran into traffic on several occasions and as a result could manage no higher than nineteenth place, although he is confident of fighting for Open victory in his ‘home’ race. Nicky Hayden pushed hard but didn’t manage to set the perfect lap that would have improved his best effort by a few tenths and propelled him up the order from 21st.
19th Eugene Laverty 2.02.894:
“My ideal time today would have put me fourteenth on the grid but qualifying didn’t go as we hoped, basically because I kept running into traffic on track. Everybody was looking for a tow and I tried to push on my own but I ran up behind three riders in the last corner so I had to back off and the tyre lost temperature. Anyway, we have to think positive and focus on our pace, which is good. The feeling on both tyres was good so we still haven’t decided which to use tomorrow. In theory the hard option will be ore consistent but we have to decide. I felt strong today so the goal tomorrow is to fight for the Open win.”
21st Nicky Hayden 2.02.946:
“It hasn’t been an easy weekend for us but the team have improved the performance of the bike today and my feeling with the front is better. We moved more weight forward so that the front didn’t lift as much and I was able to ride better in qualifying, even though the position is not exceptional. I know we always say a couple of tenths would have made a big difference but today I can legitimately play that card because three tenths, which isn’t much around a two minute lap, would would have moved me up seven spots and that would be really something right now. Despite everything I hope we can put together a strong pace tomorrow to stay in the group and have a good battle. We found some more rear grip today but a little more grip on the edge of the tyre would help us to tackle the bumps. The team have helped me to improve in several areas, which has allowed us to improve the lap times by two seconds from yesterday.”
LCR
CRUTCHLOW TO START FROM EIGHTH PLACE AT SILVERSTONE
Cal Crutchlow produced his fastest ever lap in the MotoGP class at Silverstone to qualify in eighth place for the British Grand Prix on Sunday. The LCR Honda rider had struggled over the course of the first two days at his home circuit, but saved his best form for qualifying on Saturday.
The 29-year-old was right on the pace from the morning session and, after a minor problem interrupted his progress in FP4, was highly impressive during qualifying as he finished just over a second off the time of pole-sitter Marc Marquez.
Cal Crutchlow #35 (8th – 2’01.376)
“It was a good qualifying session, I’m happy enough with the lap time I produced. Here has never been my best circuit as we know and it was the fastest lap I’ve managed to do around Silverstone I six years of MotoGP. Obviously I’m pleased, the LCR Honda team worked very well and we’re looking to make some further improvements ahead of tomorrow’s race.
“Honestly we still need to improve everything a little bit. Electronically we can do a bit better and I feel we need to gain a bit of rear grip. We had a small problem in FP4 which wasted some time as I had to come back into the pits, but overall I’m happy. I’m really looking forward to doing a good job in front of my home crowd tomorrow.”
Ducati
Iannone ninth, Dovizioso twelfth in British GP qualifying at Silverstone
Ducati Team riders, Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso, qualified in ninth and twelfth place for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, and will line up on rows 3 and 4 respectively for Sunday’s twelfth round of the 2015 MotoGP World Championship at the fast Northamptonshire circuit.
In the morning’s FP3 session, Dovizioso put in a good performance to finish third, just five-tenths of a second from the top, while Iannone could only finish his run in tenth place. Both Ducati Team riders automatically went through to Q2.
Following the afternoon’s pre-qualifying FP4, which saw Iannone place second and Dovizioso sixth, the two Italian factory team riders then took to the track for the decisive 15-minute Q2 qualifying, but they were unable to repeat the same good form as they had shown in the previous two sessions.
As a result Iannone will start the 20-lap British GP from row 3 of the starting-grid on Sunday with ninth-quickest time, while twelfth-placed Dovizioso will start from row 4.
Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – 2’01.874 (9th)
“My qualifying wasn’t very good in general, but on my best lap I made a mistake in the T2 sector at the entry to the chicane, where I lost the front and so I could only improve just a little. It was a pity because for sure we could have lapped even better than that, but when you push hard and you are close to the limit this can always happen. This morning I struggled a bit, but then in FP4 we made an important change to the setting that helped me and I was immediately quicker, setting some good times which I hope to repeat tomorrow in the race.”
Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 2’01.979 (12th)
“Up until to this morning we had done a good job, improving the bike in each session until we found a good race pace. In FP4 we had planned to do a back-to-back between two rear shocks but as soon as I set off I had a problem with the clutch and had to stop. On a long circuit like Silverstone, if you stop in the pits you don’t get a chance to do many other laps. As a result I started qualifying without any recent reference data and this made things difficult for me. Making up some places at the start won’t be easy, especially because the startline straight is short, but in any case I will try and get myself as close to the front as possible.”
Aprilia
BRADL TAKES A SPOT ON THE FIFTH ROW WITH THE BEST APRILIA QUALIFYING OF THE SEASON. SEVENTH ROW FOR ALVARO BAUTISTA
Silverstone (UK), 29 August 2015 – The Aprilia Racing Team Gresini had good qualifying sessions at Silverstone on the decisive day that defines the starting grid for the race tomorrow.
With the 14th best time (fourth in QP1), Stefan Bradl rode his RS-GP to the centre spot on the fifth row. This is the best qualifying placement thus far in the Aprilia RS-GP’s rookie season.
After some intense work on race pace in FP3 and FP4, Bautista and Bradl took on the qualifiers with different states of mind. The Spaniard was more confident with his pace and Stefan was more aware of his room for improvement in the race. But on his flying lap the German put forth his best effort and took a great placement in 2’02,657.
Bautista, who secured the 20th best time (tenth in QP1 with 2’02,908), took a spot on the seventh row, but he is optimistic about his performance over race distance.
ROMANO ALBESIANO (Aprilia Racing Manager)
“The best qualifiers of the year tells us that we are improving and that we have two excellent riders. Stefan is particularly strong on his flying lap but if the RS-GP, with its lab-bike limits, is set up the way we managed to have it today, it performs very well. Alvaro’s pace in FP4 is also very positive. After some difficult practice sessions the guys did a great job on the bikes, managing to restore the riders’ confidence. Every day of good work, like the ones we’ve had here, and the solutions to the problems that we are finding little by little, are gems of knowledge that are accumulating as we go. It could be a very interesting race for us tomorrow, in the hopes that the weather stays dry like it has been so far this weekend.”
FAUSTO GRESINI (Team Manager)
“A great performance. With Bradl we achieved our best result of the season in qualifiers and Bautista’s times are also encouraging, not far off Stefan’s. I think this is a sign that our hard work is bearing fruit and that we are taking steps forward. Now we want to confirm this progress in the race tomorrow as well. We’ll try to improve our pace over race distance and repeat the result we achieved at Brno, with both our bikes finishing in the points.”
ALVARO BAUTISTA
“In FP3 this morning we worked a lot on race pace and we found a solution that helped me to be more consistent on worn tyres. In the last session we made a few small changes and improved performance going into turns. I was feeling good, trying to maintain a consistent pace even on a very worn tyre. Maybe all of that work took a bit off my fast lap, but it gave me more confidence for performance over race distance.”
STEFAN BRADL
“I’m very pleased with my performance in qualifying. I managed to get two very nice flying laps in, both with the first qualifier tyre and with the second one. In any case, with new tyres the bike is performing very well. Our priority now is to improve our race pace. Today we tried a few different changes, but in FP4 I would have preferred to maintain a faster pace. We’ll try to use the Warm Up session to improve tomorrow so we can be more effective in the race.”
Pramac
Fantastic Q1 for Yonny who will start 11th. Petrux ready to fight from 18th position
Saturday’s qualifying at OCTO BritishGP overturns the indications which emerged from Friday’s practices and gives a great satisfaction to Yonny Hernandez, protagonist of Q1 with a fantastic time attack and convincing in Q2 ended up just 20 thousandths of a second behind the third row. For Danilo Petrucci a step back from the good feeling felt yesterday and a difficult Q1 that will force him to start tomorrow in 18th place.
The day of Yonny started to improve after FP3 (14th laptime) which did not give a promsing outlook for the qualifying. The rider from Medellin managed to make significant strides already in FP4 (12th) then impressed with a fantastic time attack in the last run of Q1 which saw him get the best time clearly beating the competition of the two official Suzuki riders. A good performance in Q2 also, saw Yonny achieve 11th position, just 21 milliseconds from the 3rd row.
After a convincing FP3 (13th time) in which Petrux recorded the sixth intermediate in T2, the feeling with the Ducati Desmosedici GP 14 has not grown. The fifteenth laptime in FP4 was the alarm bell for the problems the rider from Terni failed to solve in Q1, finishing in 18th place with a laptime of 2’02.800
11° – Yonny Hernandez – OCTO Pramac Racing #68 – 2’01.894
We worked hard, solving many problems on the front especially under braking. Winning the Q1 was a great satisfaction. Then I tried to do a good qualifying and I was close to getting a great result. Can I still improve? I think we are very close to the limit. Improvements will be very difficult but I am sure that remaining at these levels I will be able to fight for the top 10. And that’s what I want to do.
18° – Danilo Petrucci – OCTO Pramac Racing #9 – 2’02.800
I’m very disappointed because yesterday I was very confident as the bike seemed to be performing pretty well. But we didn’t manage to increase our pace, while others have improved. We are far from the laptimes at the front, and also for race pace we are not in good shape. I do not give up: I do not want to interrupt the positive trend. I will start lower than I expected and I have to overcome at least four or five bikes in the early laps to go and fight for the Top 10. Yonny has shown that we can go fast and it gives me confidence.
Bridgestone
Marquez smashes Silverstone lap record to seize British Grand Prix pole position
Round 12: British MotoGP? – Qualifying
Silverstone, Saturday August 29 2015
Bridgestone slick options: Front: Extra-soft, Soft & Medium; Rear: Soft, Medium & Hard (Asymmetric)
Bridgestone wet tyre options: Soft (Main), Hard (Alternative)
Weather: FP3 – Dry. Ambient 17-18°C; Track 23-26°C (Bridgestone measurement)
FP4/QP – Dry. Ambient 20-21°C; Track 33-35°C (Bridgestone measurement)
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.
Shinji Aoki – Manager, Bridgestone Motorcycle Tyre Development Department
“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.”
Tech 3
Impressive Tech3 duo to kick off Silverstone challenge from second row
Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team rider Pol Espargaro will lunge from 5th position on the grid for the 12th round of the 2015 MotoGP World Championship at Silverstone after undertaking a brilliantly executed qualifying campaign today. The Spaniard began proceedings on Saturday morning by completing the FP3 session in 9th position, which left him able to instantly progress through to Q2. Proceeding that, a successful ride to 5th in the final free practice saw Espargaro full of optimism as he determinedly looked onwards to the qualifying 2 shootout. When the session began, he bolted from the pit lane aboard the Yamaha YZR-M1 and set a fast time of 2’01.031 on only his second lap. This was only 0.084 back from the head of the second row and his performance today will see him start the race as the leading satellite rider. He will seek to leap forward when the lights go out tomorrow and then challenge the factory MotoGP bikes at the rapid British circuit.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the Monster Yamaha Tech3 Team pit box, Bradley Smith successfully clinched 6th position in qualifying and will aim to speed to glory in front of his home fans in the 20 lap sprint tomorrow. The 24 year old rider launched into action as soon as the morning practice began and sped to his best time of 2’02.125 on his penultimate lap out of 18, which left him in 6th position. Later in QP2, Smith who was feeling confident of storming to a strong qualifying position, got straight to work at the 5.9 kilometre track. After undertaking 7 laps, the Briton’s best time was 2’01.140 that he set on his sixth lap, which left him just one tenth of a second behind his teammate. Tomorrow he will intend to undertake a rocket start from the rear of the second row and battle to a top six position in order to consolidate his standing of 5th in the championship.
Pol Espargaro
Position : 5th
Time : 2’01.031 Laps : 6
“It’s been quite a while since I have been as satisfied as this after the qualifying. The session went very well and with the new tyre and the good grip, we were finally really competitive. However, the most important thing is that we had a consistent pace in FP4 and I was able to feel confident with the lower grip level as well, which is an area that we usually struggle with. So now we need to analyse the solution that we found as this might be crucial for other tracks because it could allow us to be fast straight away. Regarding the race tomorrow, we do not really know what to expect with the weather conditions, but for sure starting from the second row will be a huge positive. The initial 5 to 7 laps will be vital for a strong result because it is usually on the full fuel load where we lose most of our time, but I will certainly give it my all and put on a good show for the British fans.”
Bradley Smith
Position : 6th
Time : 2’01.140 Laps : 7
“I am pleased with my starting position for tomorrow’s race on the second row and I’m ready to do my best in front of my home fans. We accomplished exactly what we hoped to achieve today as it is crucial to get a good grid position in front of the Ducati MotoGP bikes, especially at a track like this. Those bikes are very fast on the straight, but not as quick as the Yamaha in the corners, so I knew that I needed to produce a good result in order start in front of them. We tried a few things in FP4 for our race setup for tomorrow, but to be honest, we knew that there were some tweaks that we could make to improve my single lap time, but I focused on getting everything sorted for tomorrow instead. Anyway, it’s my third consecutive second row start in part two of the season, which shows our progress is continuing and even though I still need to find a bit more race pace tomorrow morning, I feel good. I hope that the weather remains dry as a lot of English fans are coming out to cheer for me, so I will do my absolute best to not disappoint them by fighting inside the top six or higher.”
Marc VDS
Seventh on the grid for Redding at home
Silverstone, Great Britain – 29 August 2015: Scott Redding will start from the third row of the grid at his home Grand Prix after an impressive qualifying performance at Silverstone.
The Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider has been fast and consistent all weekend and built on his top ten pace on Friday to claim his best starting position since the Grand Prix of the Americas.
Having been searching for a solution to some front-end problems over the bumps yesterday, Redding was much more confident today with his Honda RC213V. The 22-year-old has been in the top ten every session this weekend and looks much more comfortable and consistent on the machine here at Silverstone than he has in recent races.
Tyre wear remains a concern for Redding and his crew, but they have come changes to evaluate in warm up tomorrow that they are confident will improve matters. The Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS rider is looking forward to tomorrow’s race, in which his aim is to secure his best result of the season so far.
Scott Redding: 7th – 2’01.376
“I felt pretty good and the qualifying was really interesting. I was behind Marc Marquez both times and it was quite a nice thing to have. I’ve not really been worried about following anyone this weekend but in qualifying to have someone so fast in front of me was very interesting indeed. Following Marc is unreal because you’re completely on the limit and he’s still one second faster! Our race pace isn’t too bad but our tyre wear isn’t too good. We’ll try something in the morning to help that but generally I feel quite comfortable and I’m enjoying this weekend.”
Michael Bartholemy: Team Principal
“It was a good result today and it’s been a good weekend so far. We know that we have the potential with the race tyre. I’m happy to see Scott there and we know that normally he makes a good start, so I’m hoping for a good race result tomorrow.”
