Last updated on .From the section Motorsport Honda's Dani Pedrosa in action during the wet qualifying session Sunday's British Grand Prix at Silverstone will start 90 minutes earlier because of forecast heavy rain. Intermittent downpours disrupted Saturday's MotoGP qualifying sessions, after earlier track flooding led to several riders crashing in practice. With more rain forecast, organisers have moved the start to 11:30 BST. "This was a difficult decision to make but there is nothing more important than rider safety," Silverstone managing director Stuart Pringle said. "The risk to the chances of not running a MotoGP race at all if we had stuck to the original schedule was too great." Jorge Lorenzo took pole position for the race, beating fellow Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso by 0.015 seconds. Britain's Cal Crutchlow will start fourth, with championship leader Marc Marquez in fifth. "It looks like tomorrow could be another tricky day, possibly with heavy rain, so it will be important to analyse the track conditions and try to stay up there," said Spaniard Marquez, who leads Valentino Rossi by 59 points with eight races to go. "We also must consider that if the conditions are like what we had at the end of [the fourth practice session], we cannot race. "The aquaplaning was very dangerous; I nearly crashed, and many other riders fell almost one after the other. "Depending on the situation, race direction needs to evaluate what to do, but they have a lot of experience and I'm sure they'll make the best decision."<doc-sep>Instead of taking place at 1300 local time, the Silverstone race will instead be held at 1130, prior to the Moto2 and Moto3 races. Moto3 will now run at 1300, followed by Moto2 at 1430, weather allowing. Warm-up for the premier class has also been moved to 0900, 30 minutes earlier than planned. Rain is expected virtually throughout the day on Sunday at Silverstone, but is forecast to be at its heaviest around 1300. It comes after a heavy shower prior to qualifying during FP4 doused the track and led to a multi-rider crash at Stowe corner that resulted in Avintia Ducati rider Tito Rabat being hit by another bike and taken to hospital. Multiple riders voiced their opinion after qualifying that the race could not have safely taken place in similar conditions. Honda rider Marc Marquez said the bumpy resurfaced track posed a particular problem in wet conditions, allowing more standing water to build in unusual parts of the circuit. The reigning champion said: "I don’t like to say this, because I love racing, but if conditions are like in FP4, we cannot race. And tomorrow the forecast is for much more water. The aquaplaning was amazing. "The problem is the bumps. The water gets inside the bumps, then you have aquaplaning where you don’t expect, because you don’t have the same amount of water everywhere. Where the bumps are, there is much more water." Other riders, including Valentino Rossi, also suggested the new surface not draining properly was also causing problems. Prior to the decision being announced, Cal Crutchlow suggested the best course of action would have been to delay the race to Monday, which is a public holiday in the UK. "It could be a disaster, because today was forecast under one millimetre of rain," said the LCR rider. "Tomorrow is forecast 16, 15mm of rain. So either we'll be racing on the Monday or we'll see you in Misano. "If you wanna see a race, it's a bank holiday Monday, just stay here. That's my opinion, because honestly speaking I don't think you can ride in a circuit that was like Turn 7 for the rest of the circuit – you wouldn't even make it round." But Tech 3 Yamaha's Johann Zarco, who qualified third, warned that the change to the schedule may not be enough to ensure the race takes place if persistent rain in the morning douses the track. "If it's raining from the morning, six o' clock, and then keeps raining, even not strong but all day, it won't be possible I think to race because there will be too much water on the track," said the Frenchman. "It was just raining, I don't know, five or 10 minutes, it was one big cloud and this make big trouble. If tomorrow we have constant rain, I think it's not possible."<doc-sep>Silverstone Managing Director Stuart Pringle has contested claims the circuit’s new track surface was at fault for an incident-packed end to MotoGP FP4 that led to riders expressing concerns of the running of Sunday’s race in seriously wet conditions. Three riders crashed at Stowe Corner in the closing minutes of the weekend’s final free practice session, including Tito Rabat, who suffered serious fractures to his right leg, while several other names avoided crashes and ran on. Aside from Rabat, each of those riders spoke of an excess of standing water on the Hangar Straight in those moments and described their machines aquaplaning at well over 100mph. MotoGP Race Director Mike Webb concluded those conditions to be “unraceable,” after organisers had brought Sunday’s race forward to 11:30. On Saturday evening, work was well underway at the circuit’s two trouble spots (turn seven and eight) to aid the draining of standing water in the likelihood of the forecasted heavy rain arriving around noon on race day. Silverstone MotoGP Video of Silverstone MotoGP As Webb explained, “The problem we have in turn seven and eight is the natural drainage of the water on the track puts it on one place. We’re talking about things that we have done often before: making some cuts in the track to make it drain in a certain direction, to stop it forming a river on the track.” And while Webb and a number of riders felt Silverstone’s new surface, laid in February, was a reason behind the high levels of standing water in what were exceptionally wet conditions, Pringle felt otherwise. “It was a Biblical downpour,” said the Englishman of the rain toward the close of FP4. “Frustratingly we didn’t have an accurate measurement about how much rain fell in a very short period of time, but it was more like a monsoon you’d see in Malaysia than heavy, normal rain. So it was an exceptional cloud bit of a burst, made all the more peculiar by the fact that it wasn’t up here. The drainage on the circuit is very good. “So we are happy that we are constantly on the drainage and improving it where we can. We did alter as part of the track works a small amount of some civil engineering. We did a bit of civil engineering work, but not on Stowe [turn seven, where the incident took place]. The curves remain the same. “So if there was any change there, it was a middle essentially because everything is flush to the curbs. But we are in consultation, having a meeting a FIM. We’re taking some remedial action now, namely putting some shortcuts in to try and help channel the rain away. We actually have a new drain.” On the charge the new surface was incapable of dispersing water in case of the heavy downpour, Pringle said, “It’s pretty good at throwing the water away most of the time. Not pretty good - it’s good. It’s good at throwing the water away the vast majority of the time. We have to deal with a wet circuit here very regularly.” Most riders – and Race Director Mike Webb - felt otherwise, however. Yet to the circuit’s credit overnight works attempted to aid the draining process to avoid such a build up of standing water. “We have a relentless program of maintenance and upgrading to this circuit,” said Pringle. “We’re constantly working away just tweaking where we need to. If we’ve got a problem, the nice thing is we’re pretty agile as a business. We’re pretty agile as a circuit. We’ve got experienced guys. If we see a problem, then we can react to it. “So I don’t think this is going to be a problem in the future going forward, because I’m sure that there is an engineering solution to it that we can effect pretty quickly and efficiently.” The Bumps Through the weekend, riders have complained of excessive bumps, a feature that has remained despite the resurfacing which took place earlier in this year. Again, Pringle was keen to play this down. Admitting there were issues at four corners, he was keen to point out improvements in grip and consistency. “I’ve had two riders speak to our motorcycle people in the business who have been extraordinarily complimentary about the surface and said there isn’t a problem. “They say there’s a bump at Copse, which I know there is. I know about that one. There’s a bump at Abbey. I know about that. I know that one needs fixing. There’s those two, but I think there are two others. There’s one at Brooklands and one at Stowe. I think there are four things that need addressing. “But they say that everything else is good. They said it’s fast, it improved. The grip is consistent. I know that Michael and I have had this conversation before, but the request from the FIM or the real problem was the inconsistency in grip. “As seasoned observers of Silverstone, you all recall that we’ve had some quite significant financial challenges in recent times. So when we were asked to resurface about 38% of the track, broadly Stowe round to Abbey, between Abbey and Village through Farm Curve, that looked like a stretch. “But actually I understood that if we really wanted to address the fundamental issue, which was the inconsistency in grip, that would only go so far. So we made what for us was a significant commitment to this. “Bear in mind, this is one weekend of the year. We earn a lot more money out of cars and bikes, be it testing, track days, or events. But we did a full 3.66 mile resurface, 15 meters’ width, with the first available funds we’ve had in this business for many years. “I’m deadly serious about my commitment to MotoGP taken seriously as a motorcycle racing circuit, not just a car racing circuit. So the number one thing was to provide a consistent grip for everybody, and that’s what we’ve done. “We could debate all evening what the definition of dangerous is. I don’t really feel that I want to talk to you now in the heat of a weekend about that, but perhaps it’s a conversation we could have. “I’m fearful that I could be hung out to dry on another thing that sounds like I’m criticizing the riders, and there’s no way I want to go anywhere close to that. But the reality is, this has got a grade one FIM license. It’s also got a grade one FIA license. “We’ve got runoff as big as Brighton Beach in some places that the current FIM safety inspector says is grossly excessive and we could bring the barrier in in places. It doesn’t feel like a dangerous circuit, but I’m sitting in an office and I’m not sitting on a bike at 320kph.”<doc-sep>
Silverstone is facing a humiliating backlash over its recent track resurfacing after Saturday’s rain-hit MotoGP practice session left riders in doubt over whether a similar downpour on Sunday would make the British Grand Prix possible to run. Jorge Lorenzo took pole position in a delayed qualifying session that took place on a drying track, but it was the multiple pile-up towards the end of free practice that caused the biggest concern as a number of riders went off at the Stowe corner, resulting in Tito Rabat being hit by Franco Morbidelli’s bike as it careered into the gravel trap. Rabat was heard to be in pain on the world television feed and was airlifted to University Hospital Coventry with multiple fractures to his right leg, the Avintia Racing team announced on Saturday evening. Lorenzo and Aleix Espargaro had already gone off after hitting a rain shower at the end of the Hangar Straight - the fastest point on the Northamptonshire circuit - before Alex Rins jumped off his Suzuki at more than 100mph as he aquaplaned off the track. Morbidelli also fell, with his Marc VDS Honda hitting Rabat who was already in the gravel trap. The controversy comes after Silverstone's owners, the British Racing Drivers’ Club [BRDC], had the track resurfaced in a multi-million deal earlier this year in a bid to iron out the bumps that the MotoGP riders complained about last season. Speaking after qualifying, a number of riders expressed their concern at the conditions and said that the track quickly became unrideable. With heavy rain predicted from early on Sunday, race organisers Dorna agreed with the International Road-Racing Teams Association [IRTA] to alter the schedule and move the MotoGP race to the earlier time slot of 11.30am, swapping places with Moto3. However, with showers expected to start in the area from 06.00am, there are genuine fears that the race could be cancelled altogether. Six riders crashed at Stowe in free practice (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images) “"I don't like to say this, because I love racing, but if conditions are like FP4 we cannot race,” said reigning champion and current series leader Marc Marquez, who on Friday criticised the track resurface as “worse than last year” due to the bumps that are in the tarmac. "Tomorrow the forecast is for much more water. The aquaplaning was amazing. The problem is the bumps. The water gets inside the bumps, then you have aquaplaning where you don't expect it, because you don't have the same amount of water everywhere. "Where the bumps are, there is much more water." Marquez was one of many riders to criticise the track on Friday, with Britain’s Cal Crutchlow another to note that the track was worse than when he visited earlier in the year in testing. “We’ve seen today that it’s worse than last year, even though the track’s been resurfaced,” Crutchlow told The Independent on Friday. “I’m a great supporter and very fond of Silverstone so I never like to say anything bad about it but it is true. I came here three months ago and the track was like a millpond, there wasn’t one bump in it at all, then it seems to have got worse. I have no idea why but there’s a lot of bumps on the track.” Marc Marquez said the race cannot be held in the same conditions (AFP/Getty) (AFP/Getty Images) Crutchlow, who is due to start his home race from fourth, also said during Saturday’s free practice session that he had no control of the bike in a straight line in sixth gear, such was the problem with aquaplaning, and that the best course of action could be to move the race to Bank Holiday Monday when no rain is currently forecast. "It could be a disaster, because today under one millimetre of rain was forecast," Crutchlow added. "Tomorrow 15mm, 16mm of rain is forecast. So either we'll be racing on the Monday or we'll see you in Misano. "If you want to see a race, it's a bank holiday Monday, just stay here. Honestly speaking I don't think you can ride on a circuit that was like Turn 7 for the rest of the circuit - you wouldn't even make it round." Pole-sitter Lorenzo admitted that he was concerned for Rabat’s well-being, and that race organisers would need to consider the safety of the riders as their main priority when considering whether to give Sunday’s schedule the go-ahead.