MotoGP – Silverstone race cancelled due to bad asphalt

Bruno Gomes

August 27, 2018

When many thought we would continue to watch great races like we’ve seen until now this season, the World Championship had to take a dramatic decision and the British GP at Silverstone was cancelled because of heavy rain and lack of safety for riders competing.

The decision was made at the last minute after Race Direction tried to wait for the rain to pass, but the new track surface laid in Silverstone last February, meant that riders didn’t have the necessary grip level to be able to race within safe parameters, and after many delays, MotoGP decision was to cancel the races without having the option to run them this Monday.

With many riders crashing during practice, everyone expected something like this would happen on Sunday, and all this was because the British racetrack suffered a major resurface early in 2018, but the new asphalt hasn’t shown enough drainage capabilities so there’s always a lot of standing water in critical places on the track.

Championship leader Marc Marquez said that “It has been a long, unusual, tiring day that we hope won’t happen again. I think the race direction has to be thanked; they listened, and in the end, safety was everybody’s main consideration. One of us riders is in hospital already (Tito Rabat). Sometimes we must keep a cool head and think”.