Aleix Espargaro breaks finger whilst qualifying 12th

Less than a tenth of a second was all that separated Márquez and Lorenzo in the battle for pole at Silverstone on Saturday.

It looked like it would always be that way given the duel for top spot that the two rivals had in free practice, a touch ahead of the rest of the field. The pair continued their battle in Q2 and in the final five minutes Lorenzo registered a superb time but Marquez had something up his sleeve to set a devastating new Silverstone pole record 30 seconds from the end.

The great thing about this duel is that they are both pushing each other to new limits at the English circuit and a great race is expected for Sunday.

Everything had been going well for POWER ELECTRONICS Aspar’s Aleix Espargaró after he qualified automatically for Q2 and had shown great pace, but a crash right at the end of FP4 ruined his afternoon.

At turn 2 he was thrown from his bike, which he was then struck by, causing pain to his neck and a fracture of the little finger on his left hand. He sat out qualifying and will start 12th on the grid if he is deemed fit enough tomorrow morning.

He has finger bandaged and will take some painkillers in order to sleep well, then his fitness for Warm Up and the race will be assessed.

12th Aleix Espargaró 2.03.464:
“In the morning we did a great job despite our disadvantage over a track of this distance and we made it through for Q2. In the last free practice the pace was also good on the used tyre. I put on some new, hard tyres and I don’t know what went wrong. I left the box arrived at the end of the straight slowly and the rear locked up and it threw me off. It was a real shame the day ended like that as I think I could have had a good result. The finger is broken and it hurts, as does the neck, so I need to try and get some rest, then we’ll see how I feel tomorrow.”

Source: Aspar Media