The second half of the 2026 MotoGP™ season kicked off on Friday after a three-week summer break with sunny conditions and mild temperatures of 23 degrees greeting the Red Bull KTM Tech3 team at the legendary Silverstone Circuit. 

The pace around the 5.9km layout, which is the longest on the 22-race calendar, was red-hot throughout day one. At the close of Friday, the outright circuit record had been shattered by 0.953s.

Bastianini gradually got up to speed by setting the 14th fastest time of FP1. After making changes to his KTM RC16 to improve stability, ‘La Bestia’ had more confidence toward the end of the Practice session. Sitting 17th with five minutes to go, the Italian jumped up to eleventh on his penultimate flying lap of the day. 

Meanwhile, Espargaró posted a promising performance. Just two days on from testing at Mugello, the veteran Spaniard spent the day readjusting to KTM’s 1000cc RC16 and Michelin tyres. He finished Practice in 21st but took a colossal 2.4s off his personal best from FP1 in the process. 

The action in England resumes on Saturday with Bastianini and Espargaró using the thirty minutes of track time in FP2 at 11:10 CEST (UTC+1) to prepare for  Qualifying, which starts at 11:50 (UTC+1) and will decide the grid positions for the 10-lap Sprint at 16:00 (UTC+1).

Enea Bastianini: “In the last round and many times this year I was 11th on Friday! What can I say? Maybe I need some better luck, but it's okay. Compared to last year at this track, we’ve made a good step forward. My feeling on the bike was quite good, and that is nice for the race. The bike feels faster than last year, and I wasn’t forcing it. The Aprilias are on another level here, but we can improve a little bit for tomorrow. We have a stability problem, especially when we shift gear. The bike is a bit nervous and we need to work with the electronics for that. That will probably be the key for Qualifying.”

Pol Espargaró: “I’ve ridden the 1000cc bike for many years and I still feel like a rookie! I need to understand the braking points, the lines, when you touch the gas. The torque is insane, and it's something that you need to normalise. And at the moment, I'm super stressed, because everything is coming too fast, but today was good. Every time I put on a new tyre, I improved one second. But then you check the lap times and I'm the same distance from the top guys! For sure tomorrow I'm going to go for it, and try to be a little bit closer to the front by risking a little bit more.”