IRTA president and Monster Yamaha team boss Herve Poncharal has stated that some factory teams blocked a plan to postpone today’s abandoned Silverstone race until tomorrow.

The charismatic Frenchman was full of apologies to the fans who have endured a whole day of rain, wind and being cold for nothing as the race was cancelled by rider decision - aside from Jack Miller and Johann Zarco - as it was too dangerous.

“Only Jack Miller and Johann Zarco were for racing. It’s a shame. You always have to be behind your riders, they are the ones taking the risk and know the track conditions. It’s not a good feeling, we have been waiting all day long to try to race, it’s light enough, we had a schedule with shorter races,” said Poncharal, speaking at Silverstone.

“The riders decide they don’t want to race, it’s a pity in respect of the crowd. There was another opportunity that was raised this morning as it is bank holiday in the UK tomorrow. We were pushing for that, to race tomorrow as we did it a few years ago in Qatar.

“It had to be a unanimous decision and a few factory teams didn’t want to do it tomorrow, so it didn’t happen.”

Yamaha, Suzuki, Honda and KTM are all scheduled to test at Aragon on Wednesday, so deemed that more important than racing tomorrow.

Clerk of the course Stuart Higgs had already secured the services of medical, marshal and all required support staff to make it happen on the bank holiday.