MotoGP Britain Results, Grand Prix - Light rain, flag-to-flag, last lap decider

MotoGP heads to Silverstone this weekend for round nine of the 2023 World Championship, the British Grand Prix. This page will be updated with MotoGP Britain results throughout the weekend.

Overview

Grand Prix - Espargaro wins as Aprilia makes history with four bikes in the top 10

Sprint - Marquez picks up first MotoGP win in damp Silverstone Sprint

Qualifying - Bezzecchi crashes, takes pole in wet qualifying, Quartararo last

Practice - Espargaro shines with 0.6s over second-placed Martin

FP1 - Satellite Ducatis off to a strong start as Bezzecchi tops all-Ducat top four

Grand Prix

Marco Bezzecchi started from pole position for the MotoGP British Grand Prix in Silverstone. The race looked relatively settled at half-distance, but light ran brought some more intense battles, from which Aleix Espargaro emerged the winner.

Rain was forecast for 13:00, race start time, and threatened before the start. But, in the end, the sun came out, and everyone started on slicks.

As with pretty much every other time a KTM starts from the front two rows, it was an RC16 which made the holeshot, specifically Jack Miller. Marco Bezzecchi and Francesco Bagnaia slotted in behind.

Bagnaia had struggled to stop the bike in Saturday’s Sprint, but he made clear on lap one of the Grand Prix that this ability had returned a day later. He passed Bezzecchi on the first lap, and Miller on the second, which the reigning champion led by 0.262 seconds.

Bezzecchi was quick to follow Bagnaia through on Miller, sensing the danger of his compatriot’s pace. After a lap, it was clear that Bezzecchi could match Bagnaia. The only other riders with the same pace as the leaders were Jorge Martin, whose race was ruined by running wide at the first corner, and Aleix Espargaro, who was one second behind the leaders by the time he cleared Alex Marquez for third place on lap five.

It seemed that Bagnaia and Bezzecchi were about to engage in a fight for Grand Prix victory with each other for the first time, but then the #72 crashed at Stowe on lap six, and Bagnaia’s list of challengers appeared to reduce by 50% to leave only Aleix Espargaro. 

The Aprilia rider had caught his Italian rival by the end of lap seven, but five laps later he was still unable to make a pass. Instead, he and Bagnaia were now falling back into the clutches of Espargaro’s teammate Maverick Vinales, and Brad Binder. 

At this point, the rain flags came out, the two leading pairs became a single leading group, and the race became more chaotic.

The rain was more intense in the final part of the lap - from Stowe to the finish line - than anywhere else. This convinced some riders to stop with five laps to go, but the leaders continued with slicks. There was not enough time left in the race to make back that lost in a bike swap.

One lap after the first stoppers swapped bikes, the front four became a front five, as Miguel Oliveira came from seemingly nowhere to join the victory battle. It took him a matter of corners to pass both Binder and Vinales, which left ‘only’ Espargaro and Bagnaia ahead of him.

As he caught them, he brought Binder with him. Vinales had dropped back, but with two laps to go four riders could win.

Bagnaia led onto the final lap, but Espargaro had better drive grip, which he put to use on the exit of Copse to pass Bagnaia, on the exit of Chapel to put himself out of range of attack into Stowe, and again on the exit of Stowe to leave Bagnaia with no options into the final chicane. His first win for over one year, Espargaro took it from Bagnaia in one of the Italian’s strongest theatres: the final lap scrap.

Although he lost the win, Bagnaia’s second place was a useful one both in the context of his non-scoring Sprint; and in that of the sixth place of Jorge Martin, and the retirement of Marco Bezzecchi, who are his primary title rivals.

Brad Binder came out on top in the battle for third, although at one point it seemed a kind of repeat of Austria 2021 might be on the cards. That meant Miguel Oliveira lost out, but it also confirmed his best result with Aprilia.

Maverick Vinales rounded out the top four five to complete an exceptional day for Aprilia, their best in MotoGP; while the aforementioned Martin was sixth, ahead of Luca Marini (7th). 

Jack Miller’s race might have panned out differently had he not been shoved wide at Copse early on by Vinales. Their races diverged from there, with Vinales going to the front, and Miller having to charge forwards from behind. He reached eighth, but clearly more was available for the Australian.

Johann Zarco (9th) and Raul Fernandez (10th) completed the top 10. For the first time, all Aprilia riders finished in the top 10, and 10th represented Fernandez’ best result in MotoGP.

Full MotoGP results from the British Grand Prix at Silverstone are below.

2023 MotoGP Britain Results | Grand Prix

Sprint

Marco Bezzecchi started from pole position for the MotoGP Sprint in Silverstone, but the conditions for the race were different to anything the riders had faced all weekend. Alex Marquez adapted the best, and took his first win in MotoGP.

A couple of hours before the MotoGP Sprint began in Silverstone, it had stopped raining. That proved to be enough time for the track to be almost dry at the start, making a flag-to-flag scenario a possibility for the first time in a Sprint.

Unsurprisingly, Jack Miller, on the KTM, made the best launch and, although pole sitter Bezzecchi beat him to turn one, the Australian led out of turn two, but it was Jorge Martin who led the opening lap.

The front group stretched back to Johann Zarco in 10th at the end of lap one, but it did not include World Championship leader Francesco Bagnaia, who had dropped from fourth to 12th with some assistance from the aforementioned Zarco.

Bagnaia was unable to recover from his lowly early position, and so, with Bagnaia’s factory teammate Enea Bastianini even further back (although this order would swap by the end), the representation of Ducati fell once again to its satellite teams. Particularly, it fell to Alex Marquez, who took the lead on lap two, and to Marco Bezzecchi, who by lap four had broken clear in second, but who could not match the pace of Marquez.

Lap five marked the halfway mark, and the realistic end of any prospect of bike swaps. It also marked the moment that Maverick Vinales was able to break clear of Jack Miller in the fight for the final podium position.

At this point, the podium, as it turned out, was decided. Marquez was able to hold a one-second gap to Bezzecchi, until a late charge from the Italian reduced the difference to under half-a-second at the flag. Against Bezzecchi, Vinales’ pace was no better, but he had distance behind him. For Marquez, it marked his first MotoGP race win, although the statistics will not count it as such (at least for now), as this was ‘only’ a Sprint. 

Bezzecchi, on the other hand, did well to take second place, and not overextend in search of victory, in spite of the tantalising distance of victory on the final lap, as the nine points he picked up for that second place were nine more than those picked up by Bagnaia who ended in 14th.

For Vinales, third place marked his first podium since the Portuguese Grand Prix, and for Aprilia a step forward in wet conditions was confirmed by Aleix Espargaro, who finished fifth, having been beaten to fourth on the final lap by the - as ever - late charging Johann Zarco.

Jorge Martin slipped from first at the end of lap one to sixth by the end of the race, while Jack Miller fell even further to seventh. Augusto Fernandez was eighth, Brad Binder ninth, and Miguel Oliveira rounded out the top 10.

Yamaha's Franco Morbidelli was the best Japanese bike in 15th, while Joan Mir was the top Honda in 17th. Japanese bikes filled none of the top 14 positions, but six of the bottom eighth positions.

Full MotoGP results from the Sprint in Silverstone are below.

2023 MotoGP Britain Results | Sprint

Qualifying

Heavy rain from early on Saturday morning was still falling by the time the MotoGP riders were ready to qualify in Silverstone. Despite a crash, Marco Bezzecchi took pole position.

Fabio Di Giannantonio had topped the FP2 session that preceded qualifying by 0.872 seconds, but had to go through Q1 before he could think about fighting for pole position.

Indeed, it was Di Giannantonio who set the early pace in Q1, but he crashed immediately after he did so. Although he was able to get back out at the very end, the Italian could do no better than an 18th-placed qualifying.

His place at the top was taken by Franco Morbidelli, whose Yamaha teammate Fabio Quartararo saved a mid-corner high-side on his way to qualifying last. The second spot in advancing to Q2 was taken by Augusto Fernandez, who narrowly beat Enea Bastianini, while Marc Marquez finished Q1 in fourth to qualify as the top Honda in 14th.

The crash of Di Giannantonio in Q1 would be repeated twice in Q2, first by his Gresini teammate, Alex Marquez, and then by VR46 Ducati’s Luca Marini. This was especially unfortunate for Marquez, who seemed to have the pace to challenge for pole position.

For Marini, it meant he qualified sixth, while his teammate, Marco Bezzecchi, qualified on pole, but not before he crashed himself, losing the front in straight-line braking for the Vale chicane.

Jack Miller started the session over 1.5 seconds faster than the others, and was one of the few riders not to crash. He qualified second, his KTM the filling in the satellite Ducati sandwich of Bezzecchi and Marquez.

Francesco Bagnaia crashed midway through the session at Brooklands, losing the front in a similar way to Bezzecchi later on. It was not the disaster it might have been for Bagnaia, though, whose lap time was rough for fourth-fastest, and so he will start both races from the front of row two.

Augusto Fernandez took his best qualifying in MotoGP with fifth place, ahead of the aforementioned Marini.

Both Pramac Ducatis can be found on row three, with Jorge Martin (7th) and Johann Zarco (9th) split by Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales (8th); while Brad Binder qualified 10th, ahead of Franco Morbidelli and the fastest man of Friday, Aleix Espargaro.

Full MotoGP results from qualifying in Silverstone are below.

2023 MotoGP Britain Results | Qualifying

Practice

The overcast conditions of Friday morning continued in the afternoon for the timed practice session that entirely determined Q1/Q2 seeding. That worked fine for Aleix Espargaro, who was fastest by over 0.6 seconds.

Marco Bezzecchi’s form continued from the morning. He was fastest with 20 minutes to go, but he faced opposition from a number of riders, including Maverick Vinales, who was fastest with 10 minutes to go despite a vicious high-side in the Vale chicane in the first minutes of Practice.

A similarly savage high-side took Bezzecchi out of the session with just under five minutes remaining. At the same time, Francesco Bagnaia went into the 1:58s for the first time, but Jorge Martin, Brad Binder, the aforementioned Vinales, and Johann Zarco were all able to go faster than last year’s winner.

But none of them were anywhere close to Aleix Espargaro, whose 1:58.183 was 0.671 seconds clear of second place, which was taken by Jorge Martin. Espargaro had already been quite expressive of his satisfaction with the first lap of his time attack run at the end of the session, but his second fast lap was simply a class apart from not only his first attempt, but also the best efforts of his rivals.

Brad Binder completed the top three for KTM, behind Aprilia of Espargaro and the Ducati of Martin. Rarely a hot lap expert, Binder’s one-lap speed in Practice must be of some encouragement ahead of the races.

Maverick Vinales was fourth on the second Aprilia, meaning the Noale brand had more bikes in the top four of Practice than their Bologna-based compatriots. That said, the three bikes directly behind Vinales were all Desmosedici, with Johann Zarco fifth, Francesco Bagnaia sixth, and the fallen Bezzecchi seventh.

Binder’s KTM teammate, Jack Miller, was eighth, ahead of Luca Marini and Alex Marquez, which meant that no Japanese bikes were in the top 10. The fastest of them was the Yamaha of Fabio Quartararo in 11th, while Marc Marquez was the top Honda in 13th.

Full MotoGP results from Practice in Silverstone are below.

2023 MotoGP Britain Results | Practice

FP1

Predictably overcast conditions welcomed the MotoGP riders back from their summer break on Friday morning. Marco Bezzecchi found himself returning from the time off better than his rivals, as he topped the opening session of the weekend.

The first round back from the summer break, the British Grand Prix is also the first weekend with MotoGP's updated practice format, with neither the first session, on Friday morning, nor the third session, on Saturday morning, counting for Q1/Q2 seeding, with that now being decided totally in Practice on Friday afternoon.

The two VR46 Ducati riders were the fastest out of the gates. Marco Bezzecchi topped FP1 by over 0.6 seconds after 10 minutes of Friday morning ahead of his teammate Luca Marini. The latter's position was less secure than that of Bezzecchi, and he fell back a few spots, but Bezzecchi maintained a decent advantage at the top of the timesheets for a while longer yet.

Eventually, he was replaced by the aforementioned Marini, but Bezzecchi reclaimed the top spot by the end of the session, 0.036 seconds ahead of his teammate.

Jorge Martin made it an all-Ducati top three, and his Pramac teammate, Johann Zarco, an all-Ducati top four. The first non-Ducati was KTM's Jack Miller in fifth, while Aleix Espargaro (top Aprilia) was sixth, and Franco Morbidelli was the fastest Yamaha and fastest Japanese bike in seventh, despite an off-throttle high-side  at Luffield.

Raul Fernandez was an encouraging eighth, ahead of Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo, who completed the top 10.

The factory Ducati team endured a difficult morning. Francesco Bagnaia was remonstrating at his bike on his way to 14th, one place ahead of the top Honda rider, Marc Marquez; while Enea Bastianini crashed, and ended Friday morning down in 12th.

Full MotoGP results from FP1 in Silverstone are below.

2023 MotoGP Britain Results | FP1

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