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MotoGP race director Mike Webb says the asphalt at certain Silverstone corners will be cut in a bid to improve drainage, with Sunday’s race under threat from expected heavy rain.
Following a spate of crashes at Stowe during a heavy downpour in FP4 on Saturday – one of which resulted in a serious leg injury for Tito Rabat – safety concerns were raised about the safety of a wet track.
Several riders branded it impossible to ride in such conditions, and with heavy rain forecast for Sunday afternoon, the MotoGP race has been moved to 1130 local time.
Webb described Stowe and Vale as the “worst places” for water accumulation due to both re-profiling in recent resurfacing, but admitted altering the camber of the corners is unlikely to “really do anything”.
As a result, he confirmed cuts will be made in the asphalt at both corners – as well as anywhere else deemed problematic – to try and stop rivers forming.
“The problem we have in Turn 7 and to a certain extent Turn 8, is the natural drainage of the water of the track is putting the water in one place – it’s not the outside of the track.
“So earthworks is not really going to do anything – we’re talking about something we’ve done often before, where we get some cuts in the track where we get some water to drain in a certain direction.
“There are limited options because if the water is coming off the track it’s easier to fix.”
In case heavy rain arrives when MotoGP is now scheduled to get underway, Webb has confirmed race officials will “favour” it to honour its agreement with event organisers to run the premier class race.
While keen to run the Moto2 and Moto3 races as planned, he says there is a chance they could be cancelled, and is prepared to delay the MotoGP start for as “far back as” is needed.
“Again with our agreement with the circuit – we’ll continue to favour MotoGP, and just move that programme back as much as necessary,” Webb said.
“We can move it back until we’ve run out of daylight basically, because there is things we can sacrifice.
“There is support races, there is some on track activity, some demonstrations – things like that are the first things to be sacrificed.
“So, we’ll close the schedule up and take away the less important things to preserve all three races.
“If it gets to the point where one race can’t be run, it’ll be the last race.
“We will reschedule – and we’ve done it before – we will try and get all the races run, and we’ll move it back as far as we have to.”