Silverstone MotoGP: Marquez leads Yamaha duo in first practice
Marc Marquez set the pace in the opening MotoGP practice session for this weekend's British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team
Red Bull Content Pool
The Honda rider's best time of 2:03.111 put him over three tenths of a second off Yamaha's championship leader Jorge Lorenzo.
Teammate Valentino Rossi was third quickest after a late surge, although he was nearly a full second off Marquez's best.
Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso completed the top five on the works Ducatis.
Local hero Scott Redding had a strong start to the weekend, posting the sixth fastest time on the Marc VDS Honda, ahead of fellow Briton Bradley Smith on the Tech 3 Yamaha.
Dani Pedrosa finished down in eighth position, over 1.2 seconds off teammate Marquez's pace.
Under clear skies, Rossi was the first man to appear on the timesheets, but it did not take long before Lorenzo took first place, although the Spaniard was soon relegated by Iannone on the Ducati.
In a busy start to the session, Marquez jumped to the top seven minutes in, setting the pace with a lap of 2:05.179.
As the times continued to tumble, the Honda rider lost P1 momentarily before he posted a 2:03.829 lap that put him nearly a full second clear of teammate Pedrosa 10 minutes after the start of the session.
Lorenzo closed the gap to Marquez moments later, but the championship leader could still not join his rival in the 2:03s.
The Yamaha rider improved his time with 18 minutes left, but Marquez went even quicker seconds later and, with the soft tyre in front, the Honda rider set a time of 2:03.111 to stay clear of his rival.
Lorenzo reduced the gap with some 11 minutes to go, but was still over three tenths slower than Marquez.
With less than four minutes left on the clock, Rossi jumped up three places to put himself in third position, albeit over eight tenths off Marquez's pace.
The 45 minutes of running were pretty much incident free.
Pos | Rider | Bike | Time | Gap | Laps |
1 | Marc Marquez | Honda | 2'03.111 | 16 | |
2 | Jorge Lorenzo | Yamaha | 2'03.499 | 0.388 | 15 |
3 | Valentino Rossi | Yamaha | 2'03.967 | 0.856 | 16 |
4 | Andrea Iannone | Ducati | 2'04.072 | 0.961 | 15 |
5 | Andrea Dovizioso | Ducati | 2'04.115 | 1.004 | 14 |
6 | Scott Redding | Honda | 2'04.170 | 1.059 | 16 |
7 | Bradley Smith | Yamaha | 2'04.313 | 1.202 | 16 |
8 | Daniel Pedrosa | Honda | 2'04.347 | 1.236 | 15 |
9 | Pol Espargaro | Yamaha | 2'04.364 | 1.253 | 17 |
10 | Cal Crutchlow | Honda | 2'04.413 | 1.302 | 15 |
11 | Danilo Petrucci | Ducati | 2'04.659 | 1.548 | 14 |
12 | Maverick Vinales | Suzuki | 2'04.728 | 1.617 | 15 |
13 | Aleix Espargaró | Suzuki | 2'04.816 | 1.705 | 15 |
14 | Yonny Hernández | Ducati | 2'04.817 | 1.706 | 14 |
15 | Eugene Laverty | Honda | 2'05.170 | 2.059 | 16 |
16 | Alvaro Bautista | Aprilia | 2'05.290 | 2.179 | 17 |
17 | Loris Baz | Yamaha Forward | 2'05.403 | 2.292 | 16 |
18 | Stefan Bradl | Aprilia | 2'05.956 | 2.845 | 16 |
19 | Nicky Hayden | Honda | 2'05.987 | 2.876 | 15 |
20 | Alex de Angelis | ART/Aprilia | 2'06.045 | 2.934 | 14 |
21 | Karel Abraham | Honda | 2'06.154 | 3.043 | 12 |
22 | Jack Miller | Honda | 2'06.478 | 3.367 | 15 |
23 | Mike Di Meglio | Ducati | 2'06.482 | 3.371 | 13 |
24 | Hector Barbera | Ducati | 2'07.820 | 4.709 | 13 |
25 | Claudio Corti | Yamaha Forward | 2'08.286 | 5.175 | 15 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments