With the MotoGP™ mid-season summer break over, Francesco Bagnaia came back to work raring to go by taking victory at a sunny and warm Silverstone, in the Monster Energy British Grand Prix. Crossing the line in second and third places respectively were Maverick Viñales (Aprilia Racing) and Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team).
During the early laps, Alex Rins set the new race lap record, beating Marc Marquez’s 2019 record with a time of 1’59.346, and the hot pace throughout the race led to a new race duration record of 40’10.260 – also beating the 2019 previous best time.
As was the case last year, most of the riders selected the Medium front MICHELIN Power Slick for the race, with a few riders opting for the Soft. At the rear, the choice was split roughly 60/40 between the Hard and the Medium options, depending on whether the riders wanted a quick warm in the early laps or the potential for increased stability and durability in the latter stages of the race.
Friday’s Free Practice sessions started with the riders re-familiarising themselves with the layout and grip levels of Silverstone and working on bike set-up. FP1 saw all riders heading out on track with Soft front and Medium rear MICHELIN Power Slick tyres, and Johann Zarco set the benchmark lap time of 1’59.893. In FP2 towards the end of the session, Soft compound front and rear tyres were fitted by most riders as they went into time-attack mode to set lap times that would put them into the all-important top ten positions. Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) topped the timesheet with a lap of 1’58.946.
On Saturday the sun continued to shine and despite the still ‘green’ track surface, lap times were generally fast. After more bike set-up laps, the riders again fitted Soft MICHELIN Power Slicks for their time-attack runs, and to try and get direct access to Q2. During Qualifying in the afternoon, the fast lap times continued and culminated in a new all-time lap record of 1’57.767 for Johann Zarco, beating the previous record of Marquez, which had stood since 2019, by more than four-tenths of second.
Speaking after the race, Piero Taramasso, Michelin Two Wheel Motorsport Manager, said: “Following last year’s race here, with the unseasonably cool temperatures on race day, it was good to have a British GP weekend with more consistent summer conditions. The good conditions allowed the riders to get the best from our tyres, and this was shown especially in Q2 where the top eight riders set lap times under Marc’s previous all-time lap record.
“This very fast pace continued through to Sunday with more new records set, and these broke the previous records which were set back in 2019 when the asphalt was new. During the race, various tyres from our Silverstone allocation worked very well, with both the Soft and Medium front compounds taking places on the podium.”