Ai Ogura “not expecting” Silverstone MotoGP podium despite “acceptable” day one

Trackhouse Aprilia’s Ai Ogura remains in doubt about his podium credentials at the Silverstone MotoGP despite an “acceptable” Friday.

Ogura arrived at Silverstone having been the highest-scoring rider over the past three races, with two seconds and a win in that time.

The form has seen him rise to second in the MotoGP riders’ standings, and emerge as a consistent podium contender.

Having lapped faster than the previous qualifying record in Practice on Friday, Ogura could be seen as one of the contenders for the top-three once again, especially given the competitiveness of the Aprilia at Silverstone.

But after the day one running, Ogura suggested that a podium this weekend would still be a surprise.

“I'm not expecting to finish in the top-three on Sunday,” said Ai Ogura after Practice.

“But this year's condition is a lot nicer than last year, so it's definitely helping me a lot.

“Hopefully we'll have a good condition in the next two days.”

The consequence of Ogura’s crash last year was that he arrived for the 2026 race having missed most of last year’s weekend, leaving him short on track time. This was something Jorge Martin pointed out as a hurdle this weekend, but Ogura was less bothered.

“It was quite okay, at least I did FP1 last year,” Ogura said.

He felt overall that it was a good enough day, even if the Japanese was not too thrilled by his performance, which saw him become the first rider to lap in the 1m56s.

“Today in general it was acceptable,” he said.

“The lap time was okay and I didn't [expect] that I ended up day one in P5, so it's good.”

Asked what would’ve been unacceptable, Ogura responded: “Lap time which is not enough to be in the top-10, because our target is to be in the top-10 today.”

Ogura heads into Saturday with a 14-point deficit to championship leader Jorge Martin, while Marc Marquez – who finished sixth on Friday and felt “far from the podium” – is four points behind him.