Positive result for Red Bull KTM at sunny Silverstone

Posted on Aug 28, 2017 by Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

A sunny day at Silverstone saw blue skies and another strong orange result for KTM across all three classes today for the British Grand Prix.

For the third race in a row the Red Bull KTM MotoGP Factory Racing team have had a positive result, this time on their first ever visit to Silverstone with Pol Espargaro coming home in 11th spot after a fabulous qualifying performance from the KTM RC16 motorcycle. Pol finished in 11th spot on the longest circuit of the eighteen race calendar – a track notoriously difficult for set up with its fast straights and slow corners all in one 5.9 km track. Unluckily for Espargaro he had a medium speed tumble after the finish line with a problem the team have never encountered before. Fortunately he was soon on his feet and back to the garage. Bradley Smith at his home race had a new crew chief and worked well with him as the second half of the season gets underway. He found the hotter weather on race day wasn't quite to his set up parameters and finished just outside the points.

Bradley Smith (Factory Rider MotoGP):
I had a great start and was very aggressive in the opening laps to get myself up the order. Then as the race progressed, maybe the tyre choice wasn't the best but with this temperature being a little higher than before maybe we looked at what the others were doing too much. Should we have taken a risk with another tyre? That can then be the recipe for 'hero or zero' so one has to be careful. We've learnt a lot this weekend and felt that we have found some good pace to hold in there until the halfway point but I lost the grip and confidence that I needed to make the front work. Obviously it's heartbreaking to finish a British GP like this but the intent was there from me and all of the boys in the garage but now we focus on Misano where we had a day's testing last Monday."

Mike Leitner (Team Manager MotoGP):
"The weekend was good here especially as though we've never been here before and because a Silverstone is very difficult with all these bumps, fast and tight corners too. You really need to work on a good setting but the reality is in four sessions it's very difficult to bridge the gap to the other manufacturers who've been here for seven years before so that made it all the more impressive for us that we jumped directly into Q2 for the first time in dry conditions with Pol. Bradley started with his new crew chief and that in itself isn't easy to start together at this track but it went well. We don't see the results quite yet but it will grow. Pol did a great race getting towards the top ten – hugely positive. If you'd said to me at the start of the weekend we'd be eleventh and only thirty seconds from the winner, I would have have signed on the line immediately. He had a spill off the bike after the line with a problem we've never seen before but we'll learn from that. We only have one remaining track this year where we haven't been testing before – Motegi – so we hope we'll have a better build up to the weekend at the other five tracks."

Next Race: September 10, 2017 – Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli (SMR)