It seems to be unanimous among riders that the conditions at Silverstone today were dangerous and would not be suitable for the race tomorrow. We will wait to see if the forecast is correct, but in the meantime the riders spoke about why the track was dangerous in the rain.
Marc Marquez spoke to the media after qualifying about the conditions of the track and how the race will be tomorrow considering the forecast. This was prior to the announcement that the race will take place at 11:30am tomorrow. Marquez was asked about a possible race cancellation if the rain is too heavy.
“I don’t like to say this because I love racing but if the conditions are like in FP4 we cannot race.” said Marquez.
“The problem is the bumps. The water is inside the bumps and you have aquaplaning where you don’t expect, because you don’t have the same amount of water everywhere. You arrive and then suddenly where the bump is, you have a lot of water. This is the problem.”
With other riders seemingly agreeing with Marquez’s verdict, it was suggested that riders could come together for a meeting on the issue rather than leaving it at the discretion of race direction.
“Race direction have a lot of experience, Loris Capirossi is there and he understand really well if we can ride or not.”
“I don’t want to waste time thinking about this because I am concentrating on finding the best set up and everything because in my mind it’s just that we will race tomorrow. In rain conditions but we will race.”
Moving on from the weather and possibility of race cancellation, Marquez spoke about how competitive he feels on the bike and his chances in the race. He qualified 5th on the grid, behind LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow, but set the 3rd fastest time in FP4 before the rain arrived.
“If it’s dry conditions, we did a big step in FP4 … In dry conditions, it’s Maverick the fastest one, Dovi maybe second, very close to Maverick, and then me I’m very close to Dovi, and then also Cal is very good here.” Marquez explained.
“In the wet we don’t know, because the conditions in the quali were not wet. It was completely dry all the track, then only 3 or 4 corners were wet.”
