The winner of last year’s British GP, Andrea Dovizioso, was fastest in FP2 at Silverstone today, setting a lap time of 2:01.385. Seven riders went faster than Maverick Vinales’ 2:02.073 set in FP1 this morning, including Vinales himself who improved to a 2:01.446 and finished in 3rd place.
Dovizioso is looking more competitive here than his team-mate Jorge Lorenzo, with Lorenzo languishing down in 17th until he set a last-minute lap that brought him up to 5th. He’s not miles away and could improve, but Dovizioso is looking very strong.
Cal Crutchlow finished just five thousandths away from Dovizioso in second, giving hope to the home crowd that he could challenge for the win on Sunday. This session was topped by Crutchlow last year with a 2:00.897, but the weather was much warmer and drier in 2017.
Despite finishing 10th this morning 1.6 seconds from the top, Marc Marquez improved massively and was almost immediately a second faster than in FP1. Marquez topped the times for a while until Dovizioso set exactly the same lap time as him and then went on to improve. On the other side of the Repsol Honda garage, Marquez’s teammate Dani Pedrosa has again showed a lacklustre performance, finishing 15th and 1.4 seconds away from Dovizioso.
The Yamaha riders are still looking very strong following their 1-2 in FP1, with Vinales in 3rd and Valentino Rossi briefly topping the timesheet, eventually finishing in 8th. The test in Misano may have helped Yamaha gain this performance, but the track is more suited to the bike than the Red Bull Ring from the last race. Johann Zarco on the satellite Yamaha was 7th.
Tito Rabat has been having a good weekend so far but suffered a big crash in FP2 whilst in 5th place on the timesheet. He had a fast crash at turn 12 but seemed to be fine, unlike his bike. Unable to improve, his lap time left him 13th.
Riders were keen to get into the top 10 in case FP3 tomorrow suffers from adverse weather conditions, which wouldn’t allow most to improve and consequently would see them have to go through Q1.
2018 MotoGP GoPro British Grand Prix (Combined Times after FP2):
[table id=3342 /]
