Alex Marquez slams “regional championship” race direction in MotoGP qualifying

Heavy rain has battered the Silverstone circuit all morning and led to FP3 and qualifying being run in torrid conditions.

Both sessions ran to length, with VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi claiming pole as Marquez put his Gresini Ducati third.

Qualifying was filled with crashes, with both Bezzecchi and Marquez going down, as did Francesco Bagnaia, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Luca Marini.

Marquez was left unhappy at the amount of grass deposited on track from crashes in Q2 at several corners and said the session should have been red-flagged to clean it up.

“I mean, it was a highside, like losing the front but on the rear,” Marquez began when asked about his qualifying in parc ferme on MotoGP’s world feed.

“So, I was lucky for that. Later on, I took the other bike, but I saw there were many crashes, a lot of grass going into the corner where Marco crashed, also some other corners.

“So, I don’t know if it was a world championship or a regional championship [we were riding in].

“This is not acceptable. When it’s like this, there needs to be a red flag and they need to clean the track.

“Also, there was a lot of aquaplaning. So, conditions were on the limit and we’ll see in the afternoon if we can make the sprint. I hope so.”

Jorge Martin, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Bezzecchi felt that if conditions stay as they are for this afternoon’s sprint, which is scheduled for 3pm local time, it will be “tricky” to run the race.

“I’m okay. It was a big one, but in the first half of the lap the track was okay, and then in the second half of the track there was a lot more water,” he said.

“I didn’t expect to crash but as soon as I braked the bike aquaplaned and the bike disappeared from myself.

“But I’m very happy because yesterday I could do better and today we made this pole position, I’m very happy.

“We will see this afternoon, because I think it’s a bit tricky to make a sprint [in conditions] like this.”