Silverstone, Great Britain – 30 August 2014: Mika Kallio will start tomorrow’s British Grand Prix from the front row of the grid, after qualifying second fastest in difficult conditions this afternoon. Tito Rabat will head up the second row of the grid after encountering problems on the soft tyre in this afternoon’s timed session.

Kallio’s time came despite cold track temperatures and a lack of feedback from the tyres during the 45-minute session. The 31-year-old Finn and his crew will make further changes to the bike overnight, which they’ll test in warm up tomorrow, for which the weather forecast promises warmer conditions.

Rabat was disappointed with qualifying off the front row for the first time since the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez back in May. The 25-year-old Spaniard struggled to get the bike to work on the softer option tyre in the cold conditions of qualifying and, like his Marc VDS teammate, will make significant changes to the bike ahead of tomorrow’s 20-minute warm up session. 

Electronic issues brought Jorge Navarro’s qualifying to a premature end today at Silverstone, with the 18-year-old Moto3 rider finishing the timed session in 26th position. Although facing a tough race from the ninth row of the grid, Navarro is hopeful of a good start and a points scoring finish in tomorrow’s race.

Mika Kallio // 2nd // 2’07.467
“After watching Tito disappear at Brno when I was on the second row of the grid, it’s good that the positions have been reversed here at Silverstone. The situation is different though, as the long straights here make it difficult to pull out a gap, as it’s so easy to slipstream, I think we’re going to see a group battle right to the end tomorrow. We still need to do some work with the bike, as I’m still not getting any feedback from the tyres in these cold conditions. It feels like we’re not able to get enough heat into the tyres, so we will try some changes in warm up tomorrow in a bid to improve this, as we race first tomorrow and the conditions may well be colder than this afternoon.”

Tito Rabat // 4th // 2’07.632
“I’m disappointed with qualifying, because I could have improved more in the session. At the beginning we went with the soft tyre, but the feeling was worse. We also stopped too many times in the session and I could do nothing. Tomorrow we will try to improve a little bit more the setting of the bike in warm up, because the race here is long.

Jorge Navarro // 26th // 2’15.405
“Today has been a very difficult day. In the morning my feeling was not so good, but at the start of qualifying I felt better with the bike, but I couldn’t make a good lap because of the traffic, as other riders cruising on track. I also made some mistakes and then the bike stopped due to a problem with the electronics when I was out on my last soft tyre. All I can do tomorrow is push.”