Team Suzuki Press Office – August 26. The twelfth round of the 2018 MotoGP season, held at Silverstone Circuit, was cancelled after extreme weather conditions left the track unsafe to ride.
Revisions made to the schedule on Saturday night were put in place to try and ‘beat’ the weather, and Warm-Up was in fact dry. But heavy rain throughout the day, coupled with the new track surface and cold temperatures, left a large quantity of standing water on the track. After the initial postponement of the race start, there were several meetings between IRTA, Dorna, the teams and riders, and the decision was taken to cancel the race on safety grounds. It will not be rescheduled.
Ken Kawauchi – Technical Manager
“It’s a big pity that we cannot race, but we saw during yesterday’s crash that safety needs to take priority, as always – so we accept this decision. This weekend we struggled a little bit compared to what we expected. We’ll try again in the next race and arrive with good expectations. Next we’ll have a test in Aragon, and we have many items to try. Some things are for this year, and some for next year. But of course, we’ll try to find something to benefit us for the rest of this season.”
Davide Brivio – Team Manager
“It’s been a difficult day with very difficult conditions. We feel very sorry for the public who have been waiting all day, and also it’s a shame for the people waiting to watch on TV around the world. It’s sad when we have to cancel a race, and nobody wants that, but here the condition of the circuit was critical and the safety was not at a high enough level. We had a bad accident yesterday with Rabat, and it could have been worse, especially with other riders involved and nobody wants something bad to happen. After three weeks of fantastic weather in England it’s unfortunate to arrive when it rains, and especially at a track where there’s a problem with rain. We have to learn from this experience and situation and try to avoid it happening in the future, for sure we will all be discussing it with the organisers.”
Andrea Iannone
“Finally the Safety Commission decided not to proceed with the race. We have made all the needed evaluation together with the Race Direction, but of course the safety of us, the riders, must be considered as the priority and today the conditions of the track were not safe enough to race. I understand that it is a shame for all our fans, we met a lot of great fans here this weekend and I feel sorry.”
Alex Rins
“Unfortunately we couldn’t race in the end. The weekend was pretty difficult because of the rain and the asphalt conditions and finally the Safety Commission decide not to race for safety reasons. I had a crash on Saturday and I realised how critical it was to ride in wet conditions here in Silverstone this weekend. I feel very very sorry for all the fans that came here and had to bear the cold temperatures, wind and rain, they were hoping to see us and they were disappointed.”
MotoGP World Standings 2018:
1. Marc MARQUEZ Honda 201
2. Valentino ROSSI Yamaha 142
3. Jorge LORENZO Ducati 130
4. Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati 129
5. Maverick VIÑALES Yamaha 113
6. Danilo PETRUCCI Ducati 105
7. Johann ZARCO Yamaha 104
8. Cal CRUTCHLOW Honda 103
9. Andrea IANNONE Suzuki 84
10. Alex RINS Suzuki 66
11. Dani PEDROSA Honda 66
12. Jack MILLER Ducati 61
13. Alvaro BAUTISTA Ducati 57
14. Tito RABAT Ducati 35
15. Pol ESPARGARO KTM 32
16. Hafizh SYAHRIN Yamaha 24
17. Franco MORBIDELLI Honda 22
18. Aleix ESPARGARO Aprilia 17
19. Bradley SMITH KTM 15
20. Scott REDDING Aprilia 12
21. Takaaki NAKAGAMI Honda 11
22. Mika KALLIO KTM 6
23. Karel ABRAHAM Ducati 4
24. Thomas LUTHI Honda
25. Stefan BRADL Honda
26. Xavier SIMEON Ducati
27. Sylvain Guintoli Suzuki
