The 3 day action at the Silverstone GP gave us fans plenty to talk about. From 110% performance from Bastianini to heartbreaks for others, we had everything. Read it all in DRC’s review of the weekend.
Bastianini delivers double victory for Ducati
We are quite familiar with Ducati bikes dominating entire weekends in Moto GP this year. However, this time at the British GP, it was not Jorge Martin or Francesco Bagnaia that achieved this feat. But it was Enea Bastianini. He showed exceptional pace on Saturday and Sunday causing his fellow riders to play the catching game.
He started his British weekend slow. Finishing FP1 in 6th position, he was nearly 4 tenths back on the table topper Martin. However, he still was the lead Factory Ducati. In the second competetive session, Enea placed 5th, that saw him safely sail through to Q2.
The final qualifying session was curtailed as Maverick Vinales dropped his bike in Turn 2. Bastianini, however, posted a time well enough for P3 while his rivals Pecco and Martin started in P2 and P4 respectively.
The next session of Sprint, however, was where the points would be awarded. And Bastianini let all his pace out of the bag. As the dust settled and some laps passed, it was Bastianini fast on the tail of Martin for the lead. Another bomb that dropped in this sprint was Pecco crashing at Lap 5, turn 4. This meant that if Martin wins, he would be leading the championship. However, he still had Bastianini to contend with. In an ongoing scrap, Bastianini shot into the lead at Lap 6 and started opening up the gap. And with the final lap remaining, Bastianini extended his lead to a second, and secured his first trip to the Sprint podium in style.
The Race
With a spectacular performance on Saturday, Bastianini was looked upon by many as the top contender for the win. As the race started, Bagnaia got the best start out of the front runners. Overall, the top trio of Bagnaia, Bastianini and Martin, all passed Espargaro at the start. Martin was determined to do one better than Sprint and soon passed Bastianini for 2nd. He was passed by Espargaro too. As the race progressed, however, Bastianini passed Aleix to get back into the podium places and back on the attack.
‘The Beast’ wasn’t done here. He soon pounced on a mistake by Bagnaia and began applying pressure on Martin. With six laps to go, Bastianini closed the gap tenth by tenth. Finally with just 2 laps left, Enea was right at the tail of Martin. The #23 bike surely looked intimidating for Jorge as he slid wide twice, with Enea passing him at the second time.
Just within the final lap, Bastianini pulled out a gap of nearly 2 seconds on Martin. Just another way to flex on your opponents.
This superb weekend has resulted in Enea replacing Marquez from the P3 spot in championship. He now leads over Marquez by 13 points.
The Championship table changes once again
Throughout the first part of the weekend, Jorge Martin looked determined to take his championship lead back. He capitalized on every mistake that his rivals made.
When we entered into this weekend, Jorge Martin trailed the world champion by 10 points. However, as the weekend progressed we saw how determined he was to get back into the lead. Out of the top 2, Martin looked more dialed in this weekend. Going into the sprint, he was the most probable winner on everyone’s cards. Even as Francesco Bagnaia fell off his bike in sprint, Martin kept his cool and eventually finished in 2nd. This made him just one point short of the lead in Championship.
Even in the race, Martin was the better of the two as he finished nearly 4 seconds ahead of Bagnaia. Bagnaia even exclaimed that he risked crashing in the race if he tried catching up to Martin.
Another change in the championship is Marc Marquez being replaced by Enea Bastianini for P3. Marquez had a subpar weekend by his own standards. He qualified in 7th for the sprint and the race. In the closing stages of the sprint, he lost his bike which didn’t help his case either.
In the race, Marquez was part of the top 5 that broke away from the rest of the field. Come the end, he was on track to catch Pecco for third but ultimately ran out of laps. He finished P4 on track. But with Bastianini finishing first, Marquez conceded his championship position to Bastianini.
Aprilias unable to deliver
The bikes of Aprilia Racing were looking quite fast as the weekend started. Both the factory Aprilias were fast in FP1, scoring a P2,P3. In the practice session, Aleix Espargaro posted a time for P2, missing P1 by 0.045 seconds. This difference was vanished, however, in the qualifying session.
Aleix Espargaro secured pole position over Francesco Bagnaia by 2 tenths. However, a large part of that difference is down to the qualifying session being interrupted. Maverick Vinales in the other Aprilia crashed at Turn 2, which brought out the yellow flags. Hence his performance was not on full display. He qualified P8 on the grid.
This was as good Aprilia’s weekend would get however. Aleix Espargaro was unfortunately unable to capitalize on his pole position in both Sprint and the Race. In the Sprint, he scored a P3 but was far from the leading 2. Vinales was at the tail-end of points scoring postions as he came home in P8.
On the Race day, Espargaro was again unable to get a good start as he dropped to P4. However, he was able to keep up with the top riders, and even had some fights himself. But ultimately, he crossed the finish line in 6th. He was passed by VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio who had a superb comeback drive from 10th to 5th. Vinales, meanwhile, finshed the race down in P13.
It was not a smooth Sunday for their satellite team as well. Raul Fernandes had recieved RS-GP 24 from this weekend. But he wasn’t able to put it to full use as both Trackhouse bikes retired on first lap. This mishap happened as Raul lost his bike at Turn 6 on the first lap and took out Miguel as well.
KTM – GASGAS battle
Perhaps the biggest battle of the weekend apart from the top riders was between the bikes of Brad Binder(Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) and Pedro Acosta (Red Bull GASGAS Tech3). Both the KTM riders and future teammates were fighting tooth and nail in sprint for 5th place at the moment.
In a fiery scrap that ensued, Acosta and Binder came too close for comfort, even shattering their winglets. Marquez was able to get past both of them, but Acosta swept back past the spaniard.
With these two soon to be team-mates at KTM, such fights might be the new normal from 2026.
Championship standings
After the British GP, here is how the championship looks like:
Here we wrap up our review from the weekend. Moto GP will return after a week’s break. The next round will hosted at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, from 16-18 Aug.
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