Martin continues ominous start as Marquez scrapes into Q2

Pramac rider Jorge Martin continued his strong start to MotoGP's British Grand Prix weekend in Friday's second session, topping the timesheet ahead of Aprilia's Aleix Espargaro.

The championship contender, who sits 10 points behind factory Ducati rider and reigning world champion Pecco Bagnaia, set a 1m57.911s to lead Friday afternoon’s session.

Martin led the times for much of the one-hour session at Silverstone.

Espargaro, who won last year’s Silverstone race, set the first 1m57s of the day late on in the session to finish second and ahead of Bagnaia, who ended up just over a tenth behind Martin in third.

Gresini Ducati’s Marc Marquez narrowly made it directly through to Q2, finishing 10th in the session, having crashed in the morning practice session.

Two Ducati riders faced issues early in the session with Enea Bastianini’s factory bike emitting a huge plume of smoke into Brooklands, which brought him to a halt, before VR46’s Marco Bezzecchi also stopped soon after on the Hangar Straight with what appeared to be a leak of some kind.

Bagnaia suffered a wardrobe malfunction around the 15-minute mark, with the top of his leathers coming undone. He pitted to rectify the issue before heading back out to set a new session-best time of 1m59.142s.

Maverick Vinales went top for Aprilia around the halfway mark with a 1m58.563s before he was bettered by Martin, who continued to improve, while Bastianini recovered from his earlier issue to run third.

Heading into the closing stages, Espargaro again went quickest as Aprilia showcased its aero upgrade for this weekend, with Vinales in second and the other two Aprilias also inside the top 10.

Fabio Di Giannantonio - all but confirmed to stay on at VR46 now the team has agreed a fresh multi-year deal with Ducati - was next to top the times before Bagnaia also had a turn at leading the session with a 1m58.030s, but Martin once again took control to round off Friday’s running.

Bastianini ultimately ended up fourth ahead of KTM rider Jack Miller and Di Giannantonio. Brad Binder was seventh for KTM after a late surge, ahead of Vinales, Bezzecchi and Marquez.

Pramac rider Franco Morbidelli rider narrowly missed out on Q2 in 11th, lapping seven tenths slower than his session-topping team-mate, while Raul Fernandez was 12th for Trackhouse.

Gas Gas’s Pedro Acosta was a lowly 14th ahead of Alex Marquez (Gresini) and Trackhouse rider Miguel Oliveira, while factory Yamaha pair Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins were split by LCR’s Johann Zarco.

Honda’s Luca Marini was 19th ahead of Gas Gas’s Augusto Fernandez and team-mate Joan Mir, with Takaaki Nakagami, who had an early crash on his LCR-run Honda early on, in 22nd ahead of Yamaha wildcard Remy Gardner.