Photographing the MotoGP from Silverstone 2024

2 - 4 August 2024

The pinnacle of motorcycle racing, the Monster Energy MotoGP Championship, arrived in the UK in a short period of reasonably nice weather. You can tell straight away that a Brit is writing this report when I open on a weather comment! We like to talk about the weather as we live in a country where it can change by the hour, so it’s a topic of conversation that is important to us Brits.

Your Spaniards and Italians who dominate the MotoGP grid are not so taken up with the weather, as in these countries the summer is usually rain free with glorious sunshine, and that’s why so many north europeans make the trip south to go on holiday.

It’s also probably one of the reasons why there are so many Spaniards and Italians in top flight of MotoGP and not so many Brits. It’s a lot easier to practice your two wheel skills when the sun is shining than when it’s miserable and wet.

So when we do get a few nice days it’s worth commenting on and it was lucky that the MotoGP coincided with a period of good weather. This also makes the experience of attending the weekend’s racing so much more pleasurable.

We have had so many wet races at Silverstone in the past few years that the horrible conditions have diminished the experience of watching MotoGP. The worst was in 2018 when the race was cancelled, and Saturday last year was terrible. It was so bad I packed my photographic kit away, became a pure spectator and just watched the carnage.

So it was great that this year we were blessed with a rain free weekend. Motorcycle racing and rain usually results in lots of crashes, and although some people like that kind of action, I don’t.

Crashes and two wheel motorsport goes hand in hand as the riders explore the limits of adhesion and push that little bit too far. This I can live with as pushing hard usually results in great racing, which is what I had come to experience - the best riders in the world battling it out on the most advanced motorcycles in the world. 

And what a bunch of excellent riders we have in this year’s MotoGP! It’s true to say that there has always been massive stars who attract the crowds. However as in any elite sport, that there comes a time when they just can’t do it any more and have to retire. 2021 saw the last time Valentino Rossi raced at Silverstone. The crowd that year was amazing, Vale yellow everywhere, smoke bombs going off, it was a great experience. 

This year we still have six times world champion #93 Marc Marquez who seems to have got a second wind after moving to Gresini, a Ducati satellite team, which he joined at the start of 2024 after 11 seasons at Honda. Marquez was in third place in the championship behind Jorge Martin and championship leader and three times and defending champion Francesco Bagnaia before racing started at Silverstone.

Sprint Race

The short race around the longest race track on the MotoGP championship was not a classic but full of incident right from the start. Morbedelli locked up, or the starting device didn’t deactivate, and he lost control going into the first corner, picking up Marco Bezzecchi.

Acosta brought it home in 5th after coming into contact with #33 Binder and losing a load of aero parts from the right side of his bike. Marquez was also involved in the incident, but Acosta came out on top diving under both Marquez and Binder. Marquez and Francesco Bagnaia both went down during the race in seperate incidents.

After 10 laps the Sprint race winner was the beast, #23 Enea Bastianini, second, and second in the championship by one point after the sprint race, was #89 Jorge Martin, in third #41 Aleix Espargaro who started on pole. 

Main race

In Q2 the fastest two wheel lap of Silverstone was recorded by the reigning champion #1 Francesco Bagnaia with a 1:57.517. In the last seconds of qualifying Espargaro posted a 1:57.309, pushing Bagnaia down to second with Enea Bastianini third on the grid. So we know from the get-go it was going to be a fast race and records would fall; you can only claim the lap record in a race.

The start of the race was in incident free except for #33 Brad Binder who didn’t change the fuelling map after the sighting lap, probably.

The fuelling on the sighting lap is for economy not performance, so it wasn’t the most dramatic start from Binder, in fact it looked like he was going backwards so much so he had to put his hand up to warn the other riders! After the race Binder said he had a clutch issue!

It wasn’t a classic race but the bikes looked classic. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of MotoGP there were 12 one-off livery changes. As there are 11 teams in MotoGP 12 doesn’t add up, LCR put out two livery changes just to be different.

One of the many standout bikes on race day was Aprilia who were commemorating Max Biaggi’s four 250cc titles in the 1990s, three of which he won with Aprilia, and the black livery they used looked great. Unfortunately we don’t have any pictures as we only went on the Friday and Saturday so you will have to take my word for it.

In a replay of the sprint race Bastianini took the win after breaking away from the pack with three laps to go. He is now third in the championship, however, there is a long way to go. 10 rounds, that’s 20 races. #89 Jorge Martin was second and #1 Francesco Bagnaia third.

Ducati Lenovo Team rider Francesco Bagnaia is now in second place with 238 points, but it’s Jorge Martin the Spanish Prima Pramac Racing rider who tops the table with 241 points.

Moto2 

#79 Ai Ogura was on fire setting a fastest Moto2 lap of Silverstone at 2:03.097 then a 2:02.940 in Q2, he then pitted. #96 Jake Dixon who had posted a fifth place on the grid, using all of his experience, followed him out for their second runs.

However, Ogura was wise to Jake’s tactics, realising he had pole in the bag he slowed down forcing Jake to overtake and make a run for the line. By now Jake’s chance had gone and he couldn’t improve. P5 and second row start for the race on Sunday. 

Second row was no problem for Dixon. Ai Ogura on pole was passed by Aron Canet who started to move away from the pack. Dixon also powered away and stayed with race leader Aron Canet as the pair left the rest of the grid way behind. Following Canet for most of the race, Dixon took him on the last lap to take a famous victory on home soil.

The crowd went wild as Dixon cross the line. We have all been waiting a long time for something like this to happen. It’s nearly ten years since a British rider has won a Grand Prix race at Silverstone, and you could see how much it meant to Dixon and his family as he celebrated the win. 

Monster Energy are the headline sponsors of the British MotoGP and as our intrepid photographer blagged some merch and the odd free can of lifestyle juice to sustain him during his visit to Silverstone, it would be rude of us not to mention the Monster Energy show.

Held on a large stage with jump ramps, loud music and the Monster Energy girls you couldn’t miss it. It is well worth spending some of your time here, and not just for the free beverages. The shows are spectacular and well worth watching. There are also food outlets here so it’s a good location to chill out between the racing. 

So there you have it, the British MotoGP and Moto2. There were other support races but we are not going to dive into them, so here are a few pictures. The MotoGP is a great event for the spectator photographer. It’s difficult to take a bad photo of these amazing machines. 

Silverstone doesn’t make it easy for you however, with advertising hoardings that you can’t see over and screens tied to the safety fences. Nevertheless, you can get some good shots as you can see from RPW Photography’s images, if you are willing to do the leg work. Silverstone is a big circuit so be prepared to get some steps in.

According to him, the crowd wasn’t as packed as it has been in recent years, so he was able to get into good locations without too much difficulty.

On race day there was an estimated crowd of 490000, which is quite a low number considering the standard of racing. Chatting to a few friends the entry cost could be a factor but I dismissed that. F1 is a hell of a lot more money and the fans turn out in large numbers. The added extras of car parking does annoy people, but again the F1 fans pay it. 

One factor I did touch on at the beginning of this article is the lack of any British riders in the top flight. It’s always better when you can cheer someone on during the race.

I can’t see that happening any time soon but we will be back in 2025 to support Jake Dixon in Moto2 and see if he can take another memorable win at the British round of MotoGP.