MotoGP 2015 - Round 12 Silverstone (II)

In an attempt to keep the posts slightly shorter, I have split the days up from the MotoGP and this is Saturday's highlights, if you haven't read Friday's yet, there's a link to that post here.. Also, as I mentioned in my last post, this series of posts does contain spoilers so if you haven't watched the coverage and you intend to, you might want to stop reading! Hope you enjoy!

Saturday 29th

Moto3 took to the track first thing to complete free practice 3 which ended with Kent in 4th and Jorge Martin finishing on top but with only 0.2 seconds separating the top 6, it was easy to be optimistic that Kent would do well in qualifying and in the race tomorrow.
Qualifying for Moto3 saw home rider, Danny Kent take the lead very early on and sat in provisional pole up until 5 minutes before the end of qualifying. With all the riders back out on the track and many waiting for a tow to help them get into somebodies slipstream, Jorge Navarro and Karel Hanika each put in an incredible lap to take pole from Kent and push him down into 3rd on the grid.

Kent and Vazquez in qualifying

Lots of riders sat in close behind others to get the added benefit of a slipstream

MotoGP saw Lorenzo holding on to his lead after some fast laps to regain control from Marquez before qualifying that afternoon. With Aleix Espargaro and Vinales both outside the top 10, they didn't advance straight to Q2.
In FP4, with the bikes set up with race settings, Marquez lead from Iannone and Pedrosa with the 3 Brits sitting in 9th, 10th and 11th.
Q1 was on straight after FP4 for the bottom half of the grid with the top 2 finishers advancing to Q2. The Suzuki pairing of Espargaro and Vinales lead the pack early on and retired to the pits whilst many others were still out on the track. This was definitely a mistake that became clear after Yonny Hernandez put in a lap that was faster than both of the Suzuki Ecstar boys, knocking Maverick Vinales out of the running to advance to Q2 and it left both of them too little time in the session to go back out and complete another lap.
Q2 was fast paced from the start with Marquez breaking the pole position record on his first lap! He stayed on top all session with Lorenzo only able to get as close as 0.3 seconds behind. Pedrosa rounded out the first row of the grid with Rossi, Pol Espargaro and Smith on the second row. Scott Redding and Cal Crutchlow qualified just behind Bradley in 7th and 8th respectively. An excellent result for all of the fans watching whoever they were supporting I think.

Rossi and Petrucci

Scott Redding definitely looked strong in qualifying

Marquez with Bradley Smith in tow

Marquez and another Brit, Scott Redding

Rossi leading from Espargaro and Hernandez who advanced from Q1

Moto2 FP3 saw some more crashes but luckily not from any of the top runners and with Lowes finishing in 5th behind Alex Rins, Alex Marquez, Tito Rabat and Johann Zarco.
In the qualifying session for Moto2, Sam Lowes ran off the track and had to push the bike back to the pits early on which was worrying for all of the fans of the home rider whilst Rins and Zarco sat at the top of standings. The final few laps came around and the Brit was back out on track and after putting down an absolute stormer of a lap, Lowes smashed the track record and the pole record set by Rins earlier on the session to claim pole position in his home race. Naturally, the crowd went wild when we saw a Brit was on pole after being disappointed earlier in the day when it was stolen from Danny Kent in Moto3.

Sam Lowes in qualifying

Tito Rabat was running well in 4th position before a late high side

Zarco keeping a tight line around Luffield in qualifying

We also got to watch Race 1 of the Red Bull Rookies Cup which is actually really interesting. All of the riders are aged between 12 and 16 and are all on exactly the same bike which means that the talent of the riders becomes lots more evident as you know that the bikes all have identical capabilities so any differences come from the riders. There is one Brit currently in the Rookies Cup named Rory Skinner and in Race 1 he finished 10th after fighting with about 4 other riders. The Dutch rider, Bo Bendsneyder won Race 1 and is currently leading the championship by 41 points from Italian Fabio Di Giannantonio who finished second. Race 2 in Silverstone is tomorrow so hopefully Skinner will have a good ride and another good fight.

Sunday is race day and that will go up tomorrow so make sure you come back for that! Let me know of any comments you have below and ride safe

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