Ducati at Silverstone
Andrea Dovizioso won last year’s race after a comeback in which he overtook Jorge Lorenzo, Cal Crutchlow, Marc Marquez, Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi.
Andrea Dovizioso conquered his first MotoGP victory at the 2009 British Grand Prix, the last time this race was held on the Donington Park track. Since then it has always been held at Silverstone.
Jorge Lorenzo has added 3 victories, 4 podiums and 114 points to his career total in the last 6 GPs, thus becoming the best rider of the entire championship in this time interval, ahead of Marc Marquez who has 2 wins and 106 points.
Jorge Lorenzo has won the three GPs that Andrea Dovizioso won last year at this stage of the championship. We have now arrived at the circuit where Andrea got his fourth win of 2017.
In the Austrian GP, it was the first time ever that Ducati placed three of its bikes in the first four places of the grid.
Jorge Lorenzo is currently the rider with the most wins at Silverstone: 3 (2010, 2012 and 2013). In the top class only Kenny Roberts has had the same number of wins (1978, 1979 and 1983).
Jorge Lorenzo scored a great victory in the 2013 GP by beating Marc Marquez with a spectacular inside overtaking move at the penultimate corner of the last lap.
The top speed record of MotoGP at Silverstone is 332.40 km/h, achieved by Andrea Iannone (Ducati) in the FP3 session in 2015.
Curiosities
With its 5.9 km in length, Silverstone is the longest track of the entire championship, and together with the Austin circuit, the only one in which lap times are over 2 minutes.
A new pit area was built in 2011 between the current turns 10 and 11 but it was only used for MotoGP in 2011 and 2012. From the following year, the race boxes returned to the old start/finish straight, preceded by the famous Woodcote curve. At present the new facilities are only used for Formula 1.
The Silverstone circuit first appeared on the calendar in 1977 as a substitute for the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy. Since then the race has been renamed the British Grand Prix.
Even though the track has 18 curves, riders only brake 11 times per lap, for a total of 34 seconds.
The hardest braking point is for turn 7, in which the bikes go from 330 km/h to 112 km/h, with a force of 6.9 kg applied on the brake lever. However, the longest braking in terms of time and distance, is the one for turn 16, which requires 259 m in a time of 4.9 s to go from 299 km/h to 97 km/h.
Since 2010, when the GP returned to Silverstone, two races have been held in the rain, in 2011 when victory went to Casey Stoner, and in 2015 with a win for Valentino Rossi.
The Silverstone circuit is located about 120 km northwest of London, in Northampton, between the border of Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, which is where the main entrance to the circuit is located.
