"Britain Backs Two Wheel Racing!": The 2026 MotoGP British GP Thursday and Friday Round-Up

Thursday - Pre-Weekend

For the past three years, I've made sure to attend the MotoGP Two Wheels For Life Experience Day on the Thursday at Silverstone, allowing paddock access for the majority of the day and pit lane access for around 45 minutes. I appreciate everything the charity are doing and for £85 each, I was happy to spend this to find a few riders and personnel hanging about. Or at least I bought these before it was announced that Marco Bezzecchi, Cal Crutchlow, Pedro Acosta, Ai Ogura and Diogo Moreira would attend a press conference that would instead be in London rather tan trackside. With my custom MB72 top, I was holding out hope that all of them would make it back in time before 7pm, even if Bez had another New Era Motorsport event to attend at Carnaby Street also.

So we headed on our way to make it to the circuit at around 11am to pick up the paddock passes with our waiver filled out, ready to set up camp at Woodcote Fields. This was the second year we had stayed in this specific field and being so close to the track, it made sense to stay in very basic accommodation (although we had upgraded our tent so we could stand up straight in it this year). Yet this year, it was now owned by Silverstone instead of an external company which came with its own problems. I was certain the site was open from 8am, but we were rejected entry until 12pm. Not too much of a wait but left us only 2 hours to set up before the paddock opened, and so we watched the press conference in the car, queued just in time to set the tent up and throw all our belongings in before driving towards The Wing. We must have got there around 2pm, exactly when it opened. 

Personally I love going into the paddock just to soak up the atmosphere and not necessarily rushing to meet riders, and waiting for the riders to come back from London made this experience much less intense. We took all the obligated photos that have to be done every year, plus general spotting of team members. I'm also a big fan of Jack Appleyard so we took the time to watch him conduct the pre-race weekend show whilst making sure to stay plenty out of the way.

The first rider we managed to find was Fabio Di Giannantonio although he was too fast for us, but we did manage to catch Pecco Bagnaia coming out of his media scrum where he signed a rider card we were able to pick up from the garage. During lunch we found Neil Hodgson but I didn't bother to stop him as he was quite busy, plus I had a long conversation with him about being a TV pundit at the London Motorcycle Show last year (he is a great source of advice!)

After some time, it was looking quiet so we took a walk around the back paddock to get some photos but then noticed that Cal Crutchlow was back, meaning the others surely had to be here soon, and sooner than we thought! Again, no photos with the Englishman who was extremely busy but our first actual selfie of the day came from Jorge Martin, and considering he didn't attend last year due to injury, I was happy to get him ticked off the long list of selfies.

Then the pit lane opened, still gutted not to see Bez yet but holding out hope. Anyone not bothered about meeting riders should still consider the Experience Day since the pit lane is awesome! Some teams, such as VR46 and Aprilia this year, will bring their bikes out and rev them for essentially the entire 5.9km circuit to hear and riders will come out to check it out, particularly with this being the first race after the summer break. This is when I would see Bez for the first time but I doubt he was hearing anyone over the roar of that Aprilia RS-GP. They are LOUD! Either way, it was great to see him doing well after his collarbone break (we were twins in that case after my ordeal in June!) Although we just walked up and down the length of the pit lane, you'll also find team personnel handing out driver cards where we got HRC Honda cards and LCR Honda too, meaning more decoration for the wall back at home. But my favourite moment was getting a good look at the safety and medical cars as they are brilliant in my mind! 

We only had about an hour and a half and this is when a lot of people start to exit back to the campsites or hotels. I continued waiting outside the Aprilia garage much to some of my friend's dismay as we were both relatively tired from being on our feet the whole day. I said let's stay for 30 more minutes but we only needed 10 of those before Bez appeared out of the Aprilia hospitality. As he stood on the raised platform, I clocked the eyes of who I could only assume was an admin of some social media account before Bez said he would come down. You can only wait patiently in this situations but he had already noticed the top whilst taking a photo with another fan and I think his words were "I've seen you with your top" as he pointed at me. No one told me that when you tag someone on TikTok, it sends them the video through a direct message and I know for a fact he had seen it, but not knowing whether this was a quick flick to get rid of the notification or actually have a look. I'm guessing it was the latter.

As he signed the back of the top like always, I said this was my favourite piece to make which was true and he said it was his too since I've done this for the last three years (see my previous articles on the main page). A quick snap of a photo and it was time to let everyone else have a turn too, but most importantly for my friend, at least it meant we could head back to the campsite.

After a first successful day, we got back to base to try and sort out all of our furniture before we sat down for the evening, otherwise nothing would get done. It was a cozy space we had this year and it seems we don't need much more equipment for 2027. A gas cooker with a kettle to make a pot noodle every night can be classed as dinner, right?

I started on editing videos and posting my interaction with Bez, recorded by my friend, and very quickly I started to get some attention. Most notably, the first comment being "you were on Aprilia's Instagram, right?". So I did clock the Aprilia admin. I headed onto the app and there I was on their Instagram story at a different angle. Madness. I think this weekend was heading off to a great start.

Friday - Getting Down to Business

Even being in the middle of an insane heatwave, you would think evenings would still be warm. Nope, we were still freezing at night so that is the first thing to note for next year: fluffy pyjamas. Our first goal was to get a program on the door, £20 mind you, but it was actually worth the price this year, including postcards of each of the riders, a sticker chart of Qualifying and the Race results that turned into a poster on the back and a car sticker. So yeah, worth it in my mind.

Friday is one of the best days in my opinion to explore, so our first spot included the Silverstone Museum. Even if you have been before, it is always a great opportunity to go again because they are always changing what is in there. For example, they now had Roscoe's little Mercedes and Susie Wolff's F1 race suit on display which was great to see. But a lot of motorcycle fans would be more drawn to Barry Sheene's display of leathers and bikes; all in great taste as he was indicted into the MotoGP Hall of Fame this weekend.

And of course, the gift shop is one of the best places for me as a book nerd since there are always books that you can't find in regular stores, this time being Eddie Jordan's biography which I didn't have to think twice about buying.

Now the merch stands, where I know I had to be on a strict budget this year no matter how tempting it is. I landed on the special Aprilia hat that Bez had made for this weekend but I only realised once I had bought it that I had the one without the 72 on the lip, damn! Well, I may be able to trade it at a later date so who knows? Then, would you believe it, I had to buy the exclusive MotoGP Silverstone 2026 cap just to keep the tradition of collectable hats going. Now was when I needed to slow it down and resorted to picking out free stickers and rider cards wherever I went.

We'd made a plan on where to watch each session from, making it very quickly to Abbey A for the end of the Moto2 session and the first MotoGP Free Practice. We already decided that this would be our spot next year after trying Club Corner in 2025 and now Becketts in 2026. You can get a perfect view of the start, great view straight into the garages and you want to get that photo finish at the end of the Saturday Sprint or Sunday Race Day.

It is great to watch all sessions in each series across the weekend, although we did dip in and out to get trackside food and then changing quickly from Abbey A to Village A for the first Practice session of the day. I'm sure lots of people would agree that you have to prepare yourself for this grandstand as it is uncovered in the heat of August, but you get a brilliant view of Farm Curve, The Loop and Aintree which is once again great for races. It's getting in early that is the trick as it is roving for the entire weekend and a seat is not guaranteed!

There was another reason we chose to sit here because it means we had a 400 metre sprint to get to the Main Stage for the auction. I have bought something from one of these auctions before but it was a no-no this year with my poor budget. What's great is that if you do get to the front, there is the chance of riders coming down to sign things and take photos as their time allows but it is not always a given, and rightfully so, they have no obligation to come down.

It's also just great to see what memorabilia you could get your hands on from boots to gloves to merch and helmets. Starting with Eddie O'Shea and Scott Ogden, obviously being the British GP, as well as Trackhouse's Raul Fernandez and Ai Ogura, Ducati's Pecco and Marc Marquez, Gresini's Alex Marquez, KTM Tech3's Enea Bastianini, and LCR Honda's Moreira and Crutchlow. Michael Hill makes the entire show so memorable and utterly hilarious along with the blow-up Ant of Cervera which actually might have made my day and with Suzi Perry coming right down to see us which was a dream!

The DJ for the first night's entertainment was great so we stuck about for the most part, then finally wrapped up the day back at the campsite with another pot noodle on the stove, reminiscing on the day and how the weekend was only just getting started.