MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

There are two schools of thought about the British GP. There are the old school fans who went to Donington Park and sat on the grass slopes overlooking Craner Curves and loved the experience. And there are the fans who love the fast, flowing layout of Silverstone, and the close racing it brings.

I am firmly in the Silverstone camp. Donington is fantastic for spectators, and for the ease of getting close to the track. But it is too small and too tight for MotoGP. The 800cc bikes were already struggling around the track, and the current generation of MotoGP machinery would get nowhere near their potential at the circuit. And unlike the Sachsenring, another track that is too small for MotoGP, it has nothing to keep the bikes bunched up, as we saw with the way the WorldSBK field was spread out when they visited a few weeks ago.

Silverstone, though, is a proper MotoGP track. Big, fast, wide, flowing, a place where the bikes can be given their druthers, where when the throttle is opened in sixth gear, the electronics are not trying to hold the bikes back. It is not quite Phillip Island or Mugello, but it is on a par with Assen. And because of the layout, where rider skill plays a bigger role than just pure bike performance, the racing tends to be closer.

High and flat

Unfortunately for the fans in the grandstands, however, the history of Silverstone makes it hard to get a sense of that excitement actually at the track. The circuit started life as an airfield where RAF aircrew were trained on Vickers Wellington bombers, and only turned into a race track after World War II. What you want from an airfield is for it to be up high, so you can use the wind to slow takeoff and landing speeds, and for there to be as few natural obstructions from the natural environment as possible.

That is the opposite of what you want from a racetrack. What the fans want at a circuit is a raised area so you can see over the track, and take in as much of the action as possible. Silverstone do their best with temporary grandstands around the track - an initiative they keep expanding - but it isn't quite the same. It doesn't have the intimacy of a track like Mugello, where the steep hillsides give you a view over the circuit. Or even Assen where the raised earth banks that surround the circuit take you 10 meters above the track, an allow you to follow the bikes as they sweep along the track.

That wide and open layout does make for fantastic racing, however. The track has a bit of everything: fast straights, challenging chicanes, hard braking zones, but above all, long sweeping corners, where courage counts for more than horsepower alone. If you can win at Silverstone, you have proved your mettle.

Made for MotoGP

It is ironic that a circuit owned and operated by the British Racing Drivers' Club, or BRDC, and whose ethos is centered very much on F1 and four-wheeled motorsport, should be such a fantastic motorcycle racing track. And it adds a complication unique to Silverstone. There are two finish lines at the circuit: one, at the old paddock, between Woodcote and Copse, and one in front of the new Silverstone Wing facility, between Club and Abbey.

This means that Copse is either Turn 1 or Turn 9, and Abbey either Turn 11 or Turn 1, depending on which layout is used. The track records remain the same for both layouts - the current race and pole records, held by Alex Rins and Johann Zarco respectively, were both set in 2022, when we were using the old finish line at Woodcote. But the genius of Silverstone is that both layouts produce great racing.

Why that is? Because both layouts give riders one last chance to make a pass before you get to the finish line, and enough places to compensate if you are losing in a particular area. In its current layout, with the short run out of the final corner along the front straight, past the grass verge which separates the track from pit lane, the riders brake hard for Turn 1, Abbey, before turning right and then flicking the bike over left again on the run through Farm and up into Village, Turn3.

Up and over

With the bike over on the left through Farm, they are braking hard for the tight left at Village, before flicking back left through the hairpin at the appropriately named The Loop, Turn 5. Out of 5, the riders get back on the gas, flicking left through Aintree and then hammering down the Wellington Straight before hammering on the brakes to get the bike stopped for Brooklands, Turn 6

Out of Brooklands you flick the bike right and into Luffield, Turn 7, a tight loop that opens up toward Woodcote, opening as hard as you dare with the bike heeled hard over on the right, and onto the old front straight toward Copse. Through Copse and accelerating again toward one of the most challenging parts of the track, the fast flip-flops through Maggotts, Becketts, and Chapel. It is a tempting place to try to dive up the inside, but an easy place to run wide and give up the position again.

If you lose a position through the Maggotts-Becketts complex, all is not lost, for you have two more opportunities to strike. At the end of the Hangar Straight, the fastest point on the track where you are often battling the wind, there is Stowe Corner, Turn 15. That is a good place to pass, and the hardest braking point on the circuit, but because of the speed, it is also easy to get sucked into someone's draft, the aerodynamics package of the bike ahead of you opening a huge hole in the air which can fling you forward and make you miss your braking point, and end up in the gravel.

Last chance saloon

If you can't pass at Stowe, there is still the end of Vale, and the final left and double right which takes you back to the start and finish straight. A pass into Turn 16 at Vale is possible, but it is also a place you can run wide, allowing the rider you just passed to cut back underneath and ahead at Turn 17. But that is risky, as it is easy to find yourself wide and bumping into other riders on the exit. Your final hope is to cut inside at Club, Turn 18, and try to get ahead for the short run to the finish line.

The fact that the layout is very mixed is clear from the list of winners at the track. Yamaha have the most wins at the track, going back through the 500cc era, with Suzuki a close second. But those historical records also reflect the strengths the track plays to. The grip is good and the surface is not abrasive, but it places a lot of stress on the tires, braking into Abbey, Brooklands, and Stowe, and accelerating on the edge of the tire out of Woodcote, Chapel, Aintree. You need to nurse your tires and flow with the bike.

Noale time?

Which would explain why Aleix Espargaro won here on the Aprilia last year, Fabio Quartararo on the Yamaha in 2021, and Alex Rins on the Suzuki in 2019. Ducati have also done well here - Pecco Bagnaia in 2022 and Andrea Dovizioso in 2017 - but the track naturally favors bikes that can carry corner speed and flow around the circuit. Even when Pecco Bagnaia won in 2022, he had to hold off Maverick Viñales on the Aprilia.

Which would make the Aprilia the best bet of breaking Ducati's vice-like grip on the 2024 championship at Silverstone. Aleix Espargaro has historically been strong here, at a track that really suits his style, and with retirement pending, this is probably his best chance of adding another win to his tally. He will have to push all thoughts of his retirement from his mind, however. Since he announced he would be stepping down at the end of 2024, the factory Aprilia rider seems to have lost a step, an awareness of his own vulnerability perhaps impinging on his ambition. He has not been the formidable force we have seen on occasion at the right track.

If there is an Aprilia rider you would take a bet on, it is Maverick Viñales. Despite his unpredictability, this is a track where Viñales can come into his own. He has won here on a Suzuki in 2016, and been on the podium on a Yamaha and an Aprilia, in 2017, 2019, and 2022. And he finished on the sprint podium last year. Coming back from the summer break, there is a good chance that things will fall Viñales' way at Silverstone.

Hail to the king

Of course, anyone with ambitions of victory will first have to find their way past reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia. The Italian found his feet once MotoGP returned to Europe, and has won the last four Sunday grand prix in a row. Bagnaia used the summer break to get married, adding yet more stability to his life, and is in a very good place mentally. As if to prove his point, he won the Race of Champions at the World Ducati Week at Misano. A fairly meaningless contest otherwise, with nothing at stake but pride, but Bagnaia won it nonetheless.

Bagnaia starts with an advantage over his main rival for the title, Jorge Martin. Apart from the fact that Martin's record at Silverstone is not as strong as at other tracks, both he and his Pramac Ducati team are leaving at the end of the season. When Martin was leading the championship, Ducati had no reason not to treat him any differently to Pecco Bagnaia. But now that Bagnaia is ahead - albeit by 10 points - Ducati now have an indisputable interest in having the Italian win the 2024 crown.

That doesn't mean that Martin and Pramac will not get full support for the rest of the season. But it does mean that if Ducati have anything new to bring, it is going on the factory bikes of Pecco Bagnaia and Enea Bastianini first.

That is unlikely to deter Jorge Martin. The Spaniard seems to operate best when he has a chip on his shoulder, when he feels he is being unfairly treated. Being made a second-class Ducati citizen may yet give him a few extra hundredths in motivation. He really has a point to make now.

The outsiders

Who can challenge the factory Ducatis and Aprilias? There is of course Marc Marquez, but Silverstone isn't one of the Gresini Ducati rider's best tracks. He has of course won here - where hasn't he? - but the last time he won on a MotoGP bike was back in 2014, the year he cleaned up in the first half of the season. He has been on the podium twice more, including just losing out to an incredible move by Alex Rins in 2019. But success here is not a given.

Fabio Di Giannantonio is on a roll, the VR46 rider bringing momentum from a strong first half of the season into the weekend, and really starting to grow as a rider. His record at Silverstone is not great, but a lot has changed since his transformation at the end of 2023.

Once upon a time, we would have mentioned the Yamahas, but since the Japanese factor started chasing horsepower, they have sacrificed the ability to hold a line which was once the hallmark of the bike. The new engine trialed at Assen made a difference, but only a small one, and until they can start to use the second new engine - probably after the Misano test - Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins (both winners here) must grit their teeth and hope for the best.

Rethink and restart

At some tracks, you might tip the KTMs to be in the mix, but in their five appearances at Silverstone, they have only had a single podium, Brad Binder's third place in 2023. That they were competitive last year is encouraging, but progress for the Austrian manufacturer seems to have stalled since the start of the season. KTM and their riders will be hoping for progress over the summer.

Finally, to Honda. Though there has been no testing over the summer break, the Repsol and LCR Honda teams are badly in need of something new. The riders have said repeatedly that Honda will be bringing major updates once the summer break was over, but whether HRC do that for Silverstone, and use it as a testing session, or wait until Misano, when they can test properly, remains to be seen. For now, however, any thought of success is far from their minds.

And so, MotoGP is back, after a short summer break. How will the riders respond to being back on track? How will they adjust to the mind-melting speeds of a MotoGP machine after being off one for the best part of four weeks? Who has suffered a training injury they haven't told anyone about? And who arrives the most mentally rested and motivated to resume? We find out shortly. The wait is over.

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