The Silverstone circuit in England will be the host of the next round of the MotoGP World Championship, one of the longest tracks of the season and also one of only two – together with Austin – with a lap-time of more-than two minutes.
Team Suzuki Ecstar will get to UK this weekend with the experience and progress made in wet conditions after the recent Austrian and Czech rounds. The experience gained by the team in those difficult conditions was valuable and the earliest results were already seen in Brno when both Aleix Espargaró’s and Maverick Viñales’ performances improved consistently and positively.
The tricky weather conditions that usually characterise the British weather are not worrying the team anymore because of the improvements made by Suzuki’s R&D department in Japan.
With more than 60 years history, Silverstone has become one of the most prestigious motorsport venues of the season. Completely revamped in recent years, a multi-million-pound investment saw the completion of a first phase of works to greatly improve the venue in 2010, making it one of the fastest tracks on the MotoGP calendar and earning high praise from the World Championship riders who enjoyed the new layout.
The track is 5.9 km (3.67 miles) in length with a good balance between left and right-hand corners: eight left and 10 right-handers and Sunday’s race will be disputed over a total of 20 laps, for a total distance of 118.0 km – 73.4 miles.
Maverick Viñales:
“My expectations for Silverstone are positive, it has always been a good track for me and here I also did my first pole position. I’ve always liked it a lot and I think for the Suzuki it can be a good track also. We have to work a lot, we did important improvements in latest races increasing our knowledge of the bike and finding some solutions in the set-up and electronics that can help me in tricky weather conditions. The first and last sectors are really nice, and there are some corners that will suit our machine’s characteristics. The weather will paly a role, as always in England it is unpredictable, but the progress we’ve made makes me think that we can do a good race in any conditions.”
“I’m not expecting an easy weekend as the weather conditions can vary suddenly and we’ll have to be very quick in adapting to the changes, and it will probably be cold. It will be very important to try to exploit at the best any dry session we have in order to take advantage, and also to be very quick to find a positive base set-up. I like the track, very fast where the engine will need a good performance, but also it has very fast corners where our chassis can be an advantage.”
Photos: Suzuki Racing
