Valentino Rossi’s front row start was greated with huge cheers by the home crowd.
Pol Espargaro crashed early in Qualifying 2, and will start from 12th place.
Eugene Laverty struggling to keep the front wheel down during Qualifying 1.
Predicting how a MotoGP race will play out is hard. Scratch that, predicting how a MotoGP race will play out is downright impossible. We scour the sector and lap times, talk to as many riders as possible, try to make sense of what they tell us, and take our best guess based on all we have learned.
And inevitably, we get it wrong. Because there was something we missed, or because some random factor intervened, or because we didn’t pay enough attention to what the riders were telling us, or perhaps paid too much attention to it. Which is why you should probably take the following with a pinch of salt.
After qualifying and practice at Brno, we confidently predicted one of the best races of the year, with Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Márquez setting almost identical pace during free practice.
The chase lasted for five laps, before Lorenzo picked up his heels and disappeared, riding a perfect race to an unstoppable win, and killing any burgeoning excitement stone dead.
Silverstone looks like being very similar. There are two riders who are clearly a step ahead of the rest, and on the basis of practice times on Saturday, their pace is very similar indeed.
Though you wouldn’t say that just based on the headline numbers: in FP3, Jorge Lorenzo destroyed the rest of the field, beating Márquez by nearly half a second.
In the afternoon, during FP4, Márquez returned the favor, laying down a withering pace to put over eight tenths on everyone else, and posting a string of ten laps, the slowest of which was faster than fastest lap set by any other rider on the field.
The difference between Lorenzo’s FP3 lap and Márquez’ FP4 lap? Just 0.062 seconds, in Lorenzo’s favor.
Tires are what made the difference. Lorenzo put a brand new tire on for the last two laps of FP3, and obliterated the rest of the field. Márquez put a brand new medium tire in FP4, and blew the field away, then slapped in a new hard tire, and was fast with that too.
In FP3, Márquez was working on getting the best out of old tires, in FP4, Lorenzo was doing the same, as well as trying out a setup change that simply did not work.
Two riders, similar pace on new tires, both much faster than the rest. Who will come out on top? At this point in time, it is impossible to say. What it will come down to is who manages tires the best.
Marc Marquez has taken pole position for tomorrow’s British Grand Prix, and broken the lap record in the process.
Jorge Lorenzo will start from 2nd but will be a tough man to beat come race day.
Dani Pedrosa leaves his pit box to start his 2nd qualifying run. He will start the race from the outside of the front row.
The entertainment value in MotoGP waxes and wanes through the years. One year, the races are all serial snoozers, each race settling into a procession a lap or two after the start. The next, everything is turned on its head, every race a tense battle to the line for a close finish. We are lucky indeed that this year falls very much into the latter category.
There have been some classic races already, and tomorrow’s race looks like being an absolute corker. The two title favorites and the most highly-tipped outsider are on the front row of the grid, two fast Ducatis and the best satellite rider at the moment are behind them on the second row, and one of the most exciting young talents in MotoGP will start from seventh, and is clearly competitive.
Battle tomorrow is not just for victory, but for the momentum in the championship. And if the racing needed spicing up any more than it has been already, it might just rain.
A front-row start for Rossi tomorrow, finally.
Wherefore art thou Scott Redding?
Marquez may have gone from King to Kingmaker – can he salvage his 2015 season?
After practice on Friday, it looked like the MotoGP race at Indianapolis was going to be a knock-down, drag-out battle between Marc Márquez and Jorge Lorenzo, both men very evenly matched.
A day later, and it looks like the battle could be much bigger than that, with Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi on the same pace, and maybe even Pol Espargaro, Bradley Smith, and if things go right for him, Aleix Espargaro involved in the fight.
Unfortunately for the fans, the battle will be for second, as one man has moved the game on. Marc Márquez’s reign in the USA is looking increasingly secure.
Every once in a while, riders inadvertently do me a big favor by glancing over as I’m taking pictures. Eye contact is always a bonus.
This was a continuation of an idea that I started trying a couple years ago, but I forgot about. I tried to use the track to add a bit of interest to the foreground, while making sure the rider was making an interesting shape. Cal Crutchlow was the only rider to dangle his leg, making him the ideal subject.
This is what happens when riders are asked silly questions during press conferences.
Marc Marquez will start tomorrows race from pole.
Jorge Lorenzo grabbed third with his final lap.
Dani Pedrosa made it a Honda one-two.
It’s great to be back on Asphalt & Rubber again, sitting next to Jensen in a media center at a race track, preparing photos for the A&R readers.
It’s great to be back at a World Superbike race as well, where the atmosphere is more relaxed than MotoGP. The bikes are just as shiny, and apparently you can just mosey down to your local dealer and buy one!
The bike above rolled right off the show room floor, I’m told. It would look great in my garage.
There’s also a jovial family atmosphere. Here two generations of Haslam watch Superpole 1, which is more amusing to some than to others.
Chaz Davies took the honors in Superpole 2 on a day that featured two Ducatis at the top of the time sheet.
Is the run of Yamaha domination about to come to an end? After winning seven out of eight races, the Yamaha YZR-M1 certainly looks like the best bike on the grid, so on paper, it should continue to crush the opposition beneath its wheels at the Sachsenring.
After all, the strength of the Yamaha is its ability to carry corner speed and get drive out of corners, and the Sachsenring has barely a straight line in its 3.7 kilometers.
Yet after two days of practice, it has been the Hondas which have ruled the roost in Germany. The bike which is supposed to have problems looks untouchable, with Marc Márquez looking untouchable, Dani Pedrosa the best of the rest, and both Scott Redding and Cal Crutchlow showing real promise.
Marc Marquez smashed his own Sachsenring lap record by 0.601 seconds, on his way to pole position for tomorrow’s German Grand Prix.
Jorge Lorenzo also went under the old lap record, but had to settle for 3rd on the grid for tomorrow’s race.
The intense eyes of Cal Crutchlow, who will start from 10th.