Silverstone, Northamptonshire - MotoGP will hit the 5.9km Silverstone circuit this weekend - a track first visited by the series in 2010, and one of the fastest on the current calendar.
Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo has been the most successful at this venue, with wins here in 2010, 2012 and 2013, but he’ll need to call on his past experience if he wants to gain ground in the points table on Sunday. Lorenzo’s suffered some bad results this year, and finds himself third in the championship behind Honda’s Marc Márquez and his Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi.
Points leader Márquez is also fast at Silverstone. In 2015 he broke his own outright lap record, set in 2013, with a two minutes 0.234 second qualifying time, and though Lorenzo is the bookies’ favourite, Márquez is the only rider on the grid to have beaten Lorenzo in dry conditions at this venue. He did so in 2014.
Rossi is the most recent winner at Silverstone, with a win in the wet in 2015, and a stunning strategy last time out in the Czech Republic saw him recover from near the back of the grid to finish second behind first-time winner Cal Crutchlow in soaking wet conditions. The nine-times champion could be hoping for rain on Sunday again.
Honda’s second factory rider, Dani Pedrosa, has as usual been laying low in results, but the diminutive Spaniard actually holds the lap record in a race at Silverstone.
Ducati once again competitive
Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso also can’t be counted out, as the past two races have shown the factory Ducati team is again competitive. The pair ran at the front at Brno until wet tyre issues stifled their charge, but the previous dry round in Austria two races ago gave the Desmosedici a historic one-two.
South African Moto3 rider Brad Binder (KTM) crashed out of the last race, but still holds a healthy 61 point lead in the championship, with 179 to his main title rival, Jorge Navarro on 118. The Moto3 fight is now a two horse race, as third placed Romano Fenati has left the series and the next rider, Enea Bastianini, is a daunting 85 points adrift.
There are still seven races to go, so things could still swing in any number of directions. The Silverstone Moto3 race will be aired on Supersport 5 at 1.15pm, Moto2 at 2.45pm and the main race at 4.15pm.
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