Jorge Martin showed up at Silverstone in “Martinator” mode, determined to try to regain the world championship lead that he lost at Sachsenring. After being the fastest in the opening round of the MotoGP British Grand Prix, the Prima Pramac Racing rider did the double in the afternoon session on Friday, which designated the 10 riders who earned direct access to Q2 tomorrow morning.
The rider from Madrid also showed himself to be in excellent form in terms of race pace, then when it was time to do the time attack he dropped to 1’57″911, stopping just a couple of tenths from the British track record, which remains the one set by Johann Zarco in 2022.
Behind Martin, Aleix Espargaro also confirmed his excellent form, debuting Aprilia’s advanced aerodynamic package, finishing just 45 thousandths off the top. Last year, it was the rider from Granollers who won at Silverstone, so he’ll be one to keep an eye on. Just like his teammate Maverick Vinales, who finished only eighth, but was less than half a second behind and seemed at ease today.
In third and fourth place are the two Ducatis of the official team, with the world championship leader Pecco Bagnaia occupying third place, 119 thousandths behind and ahead of his teammate Enea Bastianini, who did well to react to a technical problem that had hit his first Desmosedici GP in the initial stages of the session.
The surprise of this Friday is probably Jack Miller, who managed to put himself in the top 5 in both sessions. The Australian finished fifth at 349 thousandths with his KTM and for him it is an important result, given that he is still looking for a seat for 2025. In this case, however, he had the satisfaction of finishing behind his teammate Brad Binder, seventh.
Fabio Di Giannantonio slipped between the two RC16s, making him the fastest Ducati rider on the GP23. The good news for Pertamina Enduro VR46, however, is that his teammate Marco Bezzecchi also managed to get through to Q2, appearing to have put a difficult FP1 and engine failure at the start of the afternoon session behind him, climbing the standings to ninth place.
Just like this morning, therefore, Marc Marquez was unable to go beyond the tenth time and for the moment does not seem to be one of those who can aspire to the battle for the podium. The eight-time world champion in fact pays just under seven tenths with his GP23 of Gresini Racing and was saved only by a handful of thousandths from the assault of Franco Morbidelli, who instead will have to go through Q1 with the GP24 of Prima Pramac Racing.
The same goes for Raul Fernandez, for whom jumping on the Aprilia RS-GP24 was not enough to do better than the 12th time, ahead of Pedro Acosta, who will therefore start the second part of the season having to go through Q1 with his GasGas Tech3. As well as Alex Marquez, 14th, who 12 months ago was even able to take home the Sprint on this track.
The Japanese bikes are in great difficulty: the best is Fabio Quartararo’s Yamaha, who however finds himself in 16th position with a delay of over 1″3. Right in his wake is Johann Zarco, first among the Hondas with the LCR colors. 19th time instead for Luca Marini, who also follows the other M1 of Alex Rins, who fell at turn 6 in the final. At turn 9 instead Takaaki Nakagami slipped, but in the early stages of the session.
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