Bezzecchi battles to British MotoGP pole at soaking Silverstone

Marco Bezzecchi battled atrocious conditions to claim pole for the British MotoGP at a soaking Silverstone on Saturday.

Jack Miller (KTM) and Alex Marquez (Ducati-Gresini) join the Italian on the front row of Sunday’s race and the 10-lap sprint later Saturday.

Riding for Valentino Rossi’s VR46 Ducati-satellite team Bezzecchi was taking back-to-back poles after heading the grid at the Dutch MotoGP before the summer break in June.

He is lying third in the riders’ standings, 36 points behind world champion Francesco Bagnaia, who posted the fourth fastest time on his factory Ducati to start on the second row.

‘Pecco’ was second in the timesheets before crashing. He rushed back to his garage in a frantic bid to get back out on the circuit but time ran out for the 2022 Silverstone winner.

After setting the fastest time with a handful of minutes left of qualifying Bezzecchi promptly joined the long list of riders to hit the deck in the worst weather of the season so far.

After dusting himself down the 24-year-old, who won in the wet in Argentina, said: “I’m okay, it was a big crash, I didn’t expect to crash but I aquaplaned. We made this pole so I’m very happy.”

An indication of how tricky the conditions were came from the 18second-difference between Bezzecchi’s lap time of 2mins 15.3590s and the circuit record of last year’s pole-sitter Johann Zarco of 1:57.767.

One man distinctly unhappy was France’s 2021 world champion Fabio Quartararo.

The Yamaha factory rider failed to fire at a track where he won two years ago to qualify in last place – his worst qualifying result since graduating to MotoGP in 2019.

“That wasn’t the start of the day we were expecting. I made a mistake and had to stop in the pits. The tyres were cold and I was only able to complete one lap,” reported Quartararo.

The riders can expect no let-up in the wet weather for the sprint but the forecast for Sunday’s ninth round of the championship is brighter.