Crash in third free practice session forces extensive work on bike, culminating in fifth place in qualifying.
Repsol rider Marc Márquez had a difficult day in preparation for the British Grand Prix. In the morning practice session his progress was interrupted just two laps in, and when he went back out on track with ten minutes remaining a crash ended his session. In qualifying, the Spaniard set himself the objective of recovering confidence and finetuning his setting after the complete reconstruction of his bike. The end result was fifth place at the end of the session.
With rain making frequent appearances, Marc Márquez managed just four laps in the morning practice session. After twenty minutes waiting in the pits for an improvement in conditions, he went back out when the track had dried. Two laps into his second run, however, the Repsol rider fell on turn eight —the track’s fast right hander. He was unhurt, but his bike was severely damaged.
After a few hours of hard work from the mechanics to put the bike back together, Márquez was back for qualifying. A strong wind did not help his cause and he had to adjust his machine’s setting to the unique Silverstone track. With little time available and a mid-session break due to further rainfall, Márquez clinched fifth on the grid and a second row start for the British Grand Prix. He will use the warmup to make the final adjustments to his bike.
Marc Márquez >> Audio
FP3 – 2:20.370, 4 laps, 24 km.
QP – 2:08.864, 15 laps, 89 km.
“I had a pretty hard crash this morning, but I was lucky to escape unharmed. It was very windy in the afternoon and I wasn’t able to find the ideal setting, but we nonetheless took fifth place for tomorrow’s race. Maybe we aren’t as close to the frontrunners as in other races and we are missing a little bit, but we have the warmup tomorrow in which to try things out. We will take a look at all the data in order to cut a few tenths off our times”.
