Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Valentino Rossi set a scorching pace in Saturday afternoon's qualifying session at a sunny Silverstone Circuit to score second position on the grid for Sunday's British Grand Prix.
Rossi headed out on track in the Q2 session in the middle of the 12-rider field, but he didn‘t let that spoil his rhythm.
On his first flying lap he set a personal benchmark time of 2‘01.219s for fifth place. Unable to better his time with his next attempt, he dropped down the order and held eighth position as he entered the pits with a little more than six minutes of Q2 remaining.
A quick minute later, the live timing was flashing red sectors for various riders, including the Doctor.
The Italian was on an absolute flyer and set a superb 2‘00.025s for second place, 0.084s from first. He had time for one more lap, but didn‘t improve, and will start tomorrow‘s Octo British Grand Prix from the middle of the front row.
“I always lose a bit in the final section, I have a bit too much spin,” he explained. “I think I had a big advantage up until that point. Marc was barely inside the 1‘59.9s, so I lost a bit, but not a lot. I'm close to the pole position, unfortunately it was not enough, but I'm so happy to start from the front row, that's very important for the race. With the pace we are not fantastic, we're a bit in trouble. I hope we have the time to try to fix all of the last details and I hope to be competitive tomorrow and fight for the podium.”
