British Grand Prix, Silverstone: Bridgestone Race Review

 In MotoGP, News

Yamaha-Factory-Racing---Jorge-Lorenzo---British-MotoGP-race-winnerYamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo rode one of the races of his career to win a thrilling British Grand Prix at Silverstone by the narrowest of margins over Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez.

Lorenzo got a great start from second on the grid to lead into the first corner and was closely followed by Marquez throughout the race, with the battle heating up in the closing stages of the race. After swapping position numerous times in the final two laps, Lorenzo managed to squeeze past Marquez at Luffield on the final lap and powered away to take the chequered flag a mere 0.081 seconds ahead of Marquez. On the other Repsol Honda, Dani Pedrosa took third place having a set a Circuit Record Lap time of 2’01.941 on lap six. The first CRT rider across the finish line today was Power Electronics Aspar’s Aleix Espargaro, the Spaniard crossing the finish line in tenth place to secure his seventh top-ten finish of the year.

The dry and mild conditions continued today with a peak track temperature of 32°C recorded during the race. The fine weather resulted in today’s contest being the quickest overall MotoGP™ race at Silverstone, the average pace being over one second quicker per lap than last year. Another outcome of the consistent weather was that many different tyre strategies were used for the race, with all slick tyre specifications being utilised. The majority of riders preferred the softer slick, although eight riders – including the top four finishers – selected the harder rear slick option. Front tyre choice showed a strong trend towards the harder front slick, with sixteen of the twenty-three riders selecting this option.

Lorenzo’s fourth win of the year helps the reigning MotoGP™ champion close the gap to Marquez in the standings to thirty-nine points, while by finishing ahead of his teammate at Silverstone, Marquez extends his lead over Pedrosa to thirty points with six rounds remaining.

Bridgestone slick compounds available: Front: Soft & Medium. Rear: Soft, Medium-soft & Medium (Asymmetric)
Bridgestone wet tyre compounds available: Soft (Main), Hard (Alternative)

Weather: Dry. Ambient 18-19°C; Track 30-32°C (Bridgestone measurement)

Hiroshi Yamada – Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development Department
“Congratulations to Jorge and Yamaha for their fantastic victory at Silverstone today; that was one of the most exciting races I have witnessed with so much happening throughout the field! We were all waiting to see who would rise to challenge Marc’s recent run of victories and Jorge put in perhaps his greatest ever performance to show us all why he is the reigning champion, although Marc’s performance after injuring himself in Warm Up was also very impressive. It was wonderful to finally have fine weather all weekend at Silverstone and this not only allowed us to have great action during qualifying and the race, it provided a great atmosphere in the many other activities happening around Silverstone. Apart from supporting the teams and riders on track, we also supported Riders for Health on the Day of Champions and also entertained fans at our display booth in the vending zone. Overall, this was a busy, yet successful weekend for Bridgestone.”

Masao Azuma – Chief Engineer, Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development Department
“It was most welcome that we had dry weather again today as all the setup work and tyre evaluation done by the teams was put to good use for the race. As expected there were a lot of different tyre combinations used today and overall tyre performance was very good, with a quick pace from the beginning of the race and a new race lap record being set. The race pace was over a second quicker than last year and the lap times were also quite consistent over the twenty-lap race. Silverstone was a good race for us and a great way to end a busy period of three back-to-back races.”

Source: Bridgestone Motorsport

Contact Us

We're not around right now. But you can send us an email and we'll get back to you, asap.

Start typing and press Enter to search