FIM MotoGP World Championship

Bugatti Circuit, Le Mans, France

May 6, 2016

Free Practice Two Results (all on Michelin tires):

1. Jorge LORENZO, Spain (YAMAHA), 1:32.830

2. Andrea IANNONE, Italy (DUCATI), 1:33.169

3. Marc MARQUEZ, Spain (HONDA), 1:33.313

4. Pol ESPARGARO, Spain (YAMAHA), 1:33.406

5. Andrea DOVIZIOSO, Italy (DUCATI), 1:33.574

6. Aleix ESPARGARO, Spain (SUZUKI), 1:33.595

7. Maverick VIÑALES, Spain (SUZUKI), 1:33.613

8. Dani PEDROSA, Spain (HONDA), 1:33.748

9. Hector BARBERA, Spain (DUCATI), 1:33.951

10. Valentino ROSSI, Italy (YAMAHA), 1:33.974

11. Danilo PETRUCCI, Italy (DUCATI), 1:34.050

12. Cal CRUTCHLOW, UK (HONDA), 1:34.053

13. Scott REDDING, UK (DUCATI), 1:34.083

14. Bradley SMITH, UK (YAMAHA), 1:34.306

15. Loris BAZ, France (DUCATI), 1:34.364

16. Eugene LAVERTY, Ireland (DUCATI), 1:34.425

17. Yonny HERNANDEZ, Colombia (DUCATI), 1:34.531

18. Jack MILLER, Australia (HONDA), 1:34.656

19. Stefan BRADL, Germany (APRILIA), 1:34.742

20. Tito RABAT, Spain (HONDA), 1:34.789

21. Alvaro BAUTISTA, Spain (APRILIA), 1:35.089

More, from a press release issued by Monster Yamaha Tech 3:

Fantastic 4th for Espargaro on day one at Tech3 home Grand Prix

The Monster Yamaha Tech3 team rider Pol Espagaro began his round 5 campaign with instant speed at the stop and go Bugatti Circuit as he looks to impress in Sunday’s race in front of the French MotoGP fans. The young Spaniard rocketed into action as he commenced in setting up his Yamaha YZR-M1 for the 28 lap sprint and positively closed FP1 in 7th. The 25-year-old continued his progress in the afternoon and eventually posted a best time that saw him finish only two tenths back from second and as the top independent team rider.

On the other side of the pit box, Bradley Smith got straight into gear as he started his in-depth setup work on the Yamaha YZR-M1 in preparation for Sunday. The British rider began the day by making the initial adjustments to the base setting whilst also sampling the new Michelin tyres and he finally ended the session in 11th. In the next practice, he carried on where he left off and pushed non-stop before completing 23 laps, more than any other MotoGP rider, and with a time that was half a second back from 8th.

Pol Espargaro

Position: 4th Time: 1’33.406 Laps: 42

“The opening day went very well and just like in Jerez, we kept improving. In Spain we made some steps forward and then during the test we managed to comfortably ride a competitive pace, however, today we managed to progress even more. Of course, it’s just the first day but for sure it has been a better start in comparison to other Grand Prix’s. We improved the rear grip level and now I have the chance to ride the bike in the way that I want to. Furthermore, I’m even more pleased because the team is working very well and every time I stop in the garage and we make some modifications, I can actually feel them, which wasn’t always the case last season and this is much more important than the actual result today. In addition, I have to say that I’m very happy about the job that Michelin is doing. The tyres might not be ideal in every corner of the track, but they really have made huge leaps forward in the last weeks and we can feel a clear improvement compared to the previous races.”

Bradley Smith

Position: 14th Time: 1’34.306 Laps: 45

“In all honesty, it was a positive day overall for me even if the result doesn’t really show our true potential or reflect what we achieved. I felt that it was more important to do long runs and gain some more experience with our new setting from Jerez. This was in order to try and ensure that I’m comfortable with the bike, my adapted riding style and how we can apply it to this track. The team and I only made some small changes with the M1 to try and gain a direction for tomorrow, however, we know more or less what we need so we didn’t try anything too drastic. We wanted to find out what is best for me and we also focused on building a bike so that we can go directly into Q2 tomorrow and have a good starting point for Sunday. We tested both new front and rear Michelin tyres and now we have some useful information about the new rear options. Also, for the first time this year I am comfortable with both compounds of front tyre. Like I said, the end result doesn’t really show the positives for today but we’ll be able to show our potential tomorrow when it counts.”

More, from a press release issued by Marc VDS Racing Team:

Miller and Rabat keep focus in France

Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS riders Jack Miller and Tito Rabat made major improvements to their pace in surprisingly hot conditions on the opening day of MotoGP practice at the historic Le Mans track.

Australian Miller was able to knock an impressive 0.8s off his best time in the two 45-minute sessions, which took part in front a huge French crowd already packed into the legendary Bugatti venue.

Miller ended the day in 18th position on the combined leaderboard and he thinks there’s plenty more to come from his Honda RC213V package after he finished just 0.7s behind Jerez winner Valentino Rossi in 10th position.

Mastering the stop-and-go Le Mans track, which is dominated by a series of hard braking zones and tough acceleration points, was the big challenge facing rookie Rabat today.

But the former Moto2 World Championship acquitted himself exceptionally well and he was able to lap a massive 1.5s faster this afternoon to finish just over 0.1s behind Miller. A best lap of 1.34.789 placed the Spaniard 20th on the combined timesheets.

Jack Miller: 18th – 1’34.656

“I feel pretty good and I don’t think the final position shows how happy we are with our performance today. The lap times are pretty close and we know we have a lot of margin to improve, but overall it was a good day and we’ll keep working hard to be even stronger tomorrow.”

Tito Rabat: 20th – 1’34.789

“This morning I struggled a little bit but we were able improve in FP2 and I was able to find a lot of time. I’m within two seconds of the best pace and the gap from 11th is not huge. I can improve my technique by turning with less metres to keep more corner speed and if I can do this I am sure we can make a big step tomorrow.”

Chris Pike: Tito Rabat Crew Chief

“We need to improve the stability of the bike for Tito, particularly through the fast first corner and when he releases the brake the bike doesn’t feel so stable. We made improvements in the braking zone and he can brake harder now but we have lost a bit of stability when he comes off the brakes. That’s where we will try and improve but I am confident we can solve that for tomorrow and help him close the gap to the front.”

More, from a press release issued by Movistar Yamaha:

LORENZO TAKES FIRST PLACE IN FRENCH FRIDAY FREE PRACTICE SESSIONS

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Jorge Lorenzo positioned himself as a key protagonist for the French Grand Prix as he rode his YZR-M1 to first place today in the combined free practice session times. Teammate Rossi worked hard to find the right setting to suit the technical French track and ended the day in tenth place.

Le Mans (France), 6th May 2016

Movistar Yamaha MotoGP‘s Jorge Lorenzo was quick to display his consistent pace today as he prepared for Sunday’s Monster Energy Grand Prix de France. The just turned 29-year-old dominated the second free practice session and was the only rider to dip under the 1‘33s mark.

Valentino Rossi also put in a solid effort, but struggled to find a good stability. He was able to better his time throughout the day to take tenth position in the combined timings.

Lorenzo was looking strong in the morning and gradually improved his lap times in the cooler first 45-minutes free practice session. As he focused on finding a set-up to suit Le Mans circuit‘s stop-and-go nature he clocked a best time of 1’34.086s for second place, just 0.044s from the first.

The Spaniard continued to shave off time of his provisional best lap in the afternoon. Having found a good basis for his YZR-M1 in the morning, it only took a couple of minutes for him to take over at the top the timesheets with a hot lap of 1‘33.572s lap. Though already in the lead, he had one more trick up his sleeve. With the expectation that tomorrow‘s conditions might not be as good as today‘s, he gave a final push in the final minutes of the session to be assured of a spot in Q2 and set a brilliant 1‘32.830s lap for first place, with a 0.339s lead over his closest rival.

Teammate Rossi also was eager to start work at the beginning of the morning practice in France. He topped the provisional standing just a few minutes into the FP1 session, but was later held back due to stability issues on his bike. He went on to look for a good tyre and settings combination and booked progress throughout the session to finish in fifth place with a 1’34.452s lap, 0.410s from the front.

He continued to focus on improving the balance of his bike in the afternoon and was able to better his pace. Having found his rhythm at the end of the session, he was riding laps under the 1‘34-mark with a best lap of 1‘33.974s but was unable to climb up in the ranking order and wrapped up the day in tenth place, 1.144s behind his teammate.

MASSIMO MEREGALLI

TEAM DIRECTOR

Jorge had a strong start to the weekend and so far he is on schedule with the progress that he made in FP1 and FP2. He has been fast and consistent since the first session and was in a class on his own in FP2. Vale suffered from a lack of stability on his bike since the beginning of the morning session and whilst trying to solve it unfortunately it compromised a few other areas and the bike became heavier to ride, making him more uncomfortable. Both riders were able to compare different tyre choices, but it‘s too early to judge. Tonight we will certainly work on some solutions that we will test in FP3 tomorrow to further improve the set-up of the bikes.

JORGE LORENZO

I am very satisfied because from the beginning we started with a good setting and I was relatively fast, quite comfortably. In the afternoon we improved the bike a little bit and we went even faster with quite a big difference, a couple of tenths, to the rider in second place. It wasn‘t just one lap, we also had a good pace so it was a very good start to the weekend. Let‘s see if tomorrow we can increase the pace a little bit more and prepare for the race to our best capabilities.

VALENTINO ROSSI

We tried a lot of different things for the setting because this morning I wasn‘t fast enough, but unfortunately in the afternoon the situation was worse and we didn‘t find the right way. In fact, in the morning I was also quite slow and for this reason I didn‘t try the third tyre from Michelin, because we didn‘t have time. I will try it tomorrow morning.

More, from a press release issued by Pramac Racing:

Petrux is back! Danilo returns on track and laps quickly. Scott with a good feeling

There was great expectation at Le Mans for the return of Danilo Petrucci who was forced to miss first four round of the 2016 MotoGP season due to the double injury on his right hand. The applause of his team at the end of FP2 was the greatest satisfaction for Octo Pramac Yakhnich in the first day of the Grand Prix de France. Positive news also from Scott Redding who seems to have found back a good feeling with his Ducati Desmosedici GP.

The first goal of Petrux was to check the status of his hand and the feelings were immediately positive during FP1 in which the rider from Terni from lapped with confidence managing to easily withstand the foreseeable pain. Following the positive check up at Clinica Mobile, Petrux has gained confidence to lower his FP2 fastest time by one second and three tenths and finishing 11th, 76 milliseconds behind Valentino Rossi.

Scott Redding found confidence since FP1 ended three tenths of a second from the virtual third row. In the afternoon Scott immediately recorded his fastest time (1’34.083) that allowed him to stay easily in the Top 10. During his final time attack, when the pace seemed even better thanks to a good T1 (7th fastest time), a crash without consequences at turn 7 did not allow him to realize the good feeling with the bike, also underlined by the 10th ideal time of day.

13th SCOTT REDDING

1’34.083

The feeling with the bike and the tires is much better compared to Jerez. I am disappointed for the crash: I put the new rear tyre which gave me confidence and maybe I pushed a bit too much. I could stay in the Top 10 but we will be there tomorrow. We can improve and that’s what we will try to do from this evening studying the data we have available. I’m happy with how I could use the tires. I am sure that the feeling is coming back and this is a nice sensation.

11th DANILO PETRUCCI

1’34.050

I did not know what to expect out of my hand. For me it would have been nice to finish the two rounds and I honestly did not expect to finish close to Top 10. I am very happy because this race for me is like a test. I do not know these tires and I was missing so much riding my bike. I thank my team: as in Qatar they put me in the position of having to think very little and just try to ride well. I’m really happy but I must be calm: I must avoid problems in this week end to arrive at Mugello in the best possible condition.

More, from a press release issued by Aspar Team:

Aspar riders improving performance ahead of qualifying

Eugene Laverty and Yonny Hernández separated by just a tenth after opening day in France

The historic Le Mans circuit welcomed the MotoGP World Championship with a pleasant surprise today as blue skies and sunshine prevailed for the majority of the day. There were some surprises on the track too as Valentino Rossi, race winner last time out at Jerez, finished tenth fastest, with a gap of over three tenths separating the top two riders. Jorge Lorenzo completed an impressive second session with a lap that took a full second off his best from the morning and left the overnight benchmark at 1,32.830, just five hundredths off the lap record held by his team-mate Rossi. Andrea Iannone and Marc Márquez complete the top three ahead of Pol Espargaró, fourth fastest at the start of his team’s home Grand Prix.

Eugene Laverty was the fastest of the two Aspar Team riders after a busy day that saw him finish 1.6 seconds off the pace of Lorenzo. Laverty struggled for grip in the morning session but along with his team he turned things around to find two seconds in the afternoon. The Irishman has again set a target of qualification for Q2 this weekend, although his main focus is race set-up as he looks to continue a strong run of results. Yonny Hernández finished seventeenth fastest, a tenth off his team-mate on a day that saw his progress slowed by a crash and a faulty tyre. The Colombian escaped unhurt from a fall at turn 8 during the opening session and he is confident that some small changes can lead to big improvements tomorrow.

16th Eugene Laverty 1.34.425 (30 laps): “”Our bike worked well at Jerez but this track has a completely different character and it didn’t feel good this morning. I didn’t have good feeling with the rear in corner entry, there was no grip on entry or exit and that meant I couldn’t turn the bike. In the afternoon we improved the lap time by two seconds, which is huge. I am really pleased with the way the guys turned it around so quickly – even my first lap in FP2 was already half a second faster than what I managed this morning. Once we got the rear gripping better, everything else fell into place. So we made big progress and now I feel optimistic. The aim for tomorrow is to fight for the Q2 although if it doesn’t happen it’s not a big problem – we saw in Jerez that I can make up some positions even on the first laps. The race is the most important thing so we’ll keep working hard on the set-up and hopefully keep improving like we did today.”

17th Yonny Hernández 1.34.531 (33 laps): “We managed to find a good rhythm in the second session today after a little crash this morning. It wasn’t anything major, I just lost the front on the way into turn 8. In the afternoon we had to run in some new front brake callipers and we lost a little time, and then at the end of the session I had a faulty rear tyre. I could tell there was something wrong almost straight away but I tried to push for a couple of laps to improve my pace. I am confident because we know what we need to improve on the bike and tomorrow we will be working hard to take a big step forward.”

More, from a press release issued by Repsol Honda:

Positive first day of work for Marquez and Pedrosa at Le Mans

Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa started working on the setup of their RC213V on the French GP’s opening day, which took place in fine albeit a bit cool weather conditions, with max air and ground temperatures of 22° and 27° C, respectively.

Marquez set the third-fastest time both in the morning and the afternoon sessions while working on electronics and on the general setup of the bike, looking to improve his pace on the first and third sectors of the track.

Pedrosa had a very positive start to the day, clocking the fastest time in FP1. He also started the afternoon session quite strong, breaking trough the 1’34” barrier in his first run before trying some setup changes that didn’t help him to make an additional step forward as he had hoped.

Both riders tried the new rear tyre that Michelin brought and look forward to continuing their work on it, beginning with tomorrow’s FP3 session at 9:55 a.m. local time.

Marc Marquez

3RD 1’33.313

“Today was demanding. We knew this circuit would cause us to struggle a bit, but we’re overcoming things fairly well. I have a good pace and I’m feeling good, although we’re losing some time on both of this circuit’s hard acceleration points; it’s something that’s difficult to recover from afterwards. We’re working on this aspect and we’ll see if we can take another step forward tomorrow, both with the electronics and with the setup of the bike. It will also be important to make a good decision about which tyres we’ll use on Sunday, although it seems that both of the compounds we have available are pretty good.”

Dani Pedrosa

8TH 1’33.748

“We started the day well, but in the end we didn’t finish off as we had hoped. The start of the second session also went well, but after that we were evaluating some technical changes that didn’t give us the results we wanted, and made me lose pace. We won’t make many changes to the bike’s setup tomorrow, in order to try to concentrate on my riding and on improving the pace for both the race and qualifying.”

More, from a press release issued by Ducati Corse:

Iannone second and Dovizioso fifth after opening day of free practice for the French GP at Le Mans

The Ducati Team riders both had a positive start to their French Grand Prix weekend campaign at Le Mans. Andrea Iannone was second quickest at the end of today’s two free practice sessions, while his team-mate Andrea Dovizioso ended up in fifth place.

On a sunny day, with spring-like temperatures, the MotoGP field went out onto the track at 9.55 am for the first FP1 session, and the two factory Ducati riders immediately proved to have good pace, Dovizioso notching up the fourth quickest time with Iannone ending the session in sixth place.

In the afternoon run, all the riders improved their times considerably and, at the end of the session, Iannone had clocked a best time of 1’33.169, which put him into second place, around three-tenths of a second down on provisional polesitter Lorenzo.

Andrea Dovizioso was also on good form today, setting a time of 1’33.574 on the twenty-first and final lap of FP2 which earned him fifth place.

Andrea Iannone (Ducati Team #29) – 1’33.169 (2nd)

“This afternoon we managed to improve over the morning session after getting to grips with the behaviour of my Desmosedici GP and adapting it to the characteristics of this circuit. We’ve still got some work to do tomorrow in this direction, but for today I am quite satisfied. Regarding the tyres, this afternoon we also tried the new rear tyre that Michelin brought to Le Mans. The French manufacturer is proving to be very responsive because it wasn’t necessarily expected that it would immediately work better than the standard one. My bike still moves about a bit coming out of the corner and we still have some spinning, but the situation has improved a lot over Jerez and so now we have to continue to work to try and resolve these two problems.”

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team # 04) – 1’33’.574 (5th)

“I am quite satisfied with this first day of track action, because we started off well and we were quite quick, even though maybe I had expected to go a bit quicker in the afternoon session. We also tried a new rear tyre, which modified my feeling with the bike a bit, but we need to continue to work on it to get to know it better. In any case I am convinced that we have room for improvement tomorrow and that our pace, apart from that of Lorenzo, is in line with the fastest riders.”

More, from a press release issued by Aprilia:

FIRST DAY OF MOTOGP PRACTICE AT LE MANS FOR APRILIA

It was a full practice schedule at Le Mans for Aprilia, busy on the track developing the RS-GP which, introduced just before the season opener, demands additional efforts from the mechanics and riders that go beyond simply looking for the best lap times. In the first two sessions today, Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl worked intensely on both testing the new materials that were introduced at Jerez (and partially tested after the race on Monday at Mugello) and on assessing some changes in the tyre options.

Aprilia Racing Team Gresini will focus their efforts on pure performance tomorrow after the usual analysis of today’s activities, having all of the data collected at their fingertips to come up with a base configuration where setup is concerned.

ALVARO BAUTISTA

“This morning the problem was in coming out of the tight turns with the bike being rather twitchy. In the afternoon we tried to improve in this area, managing to shave a bit off our lap times, but in trying to find more stability we lost a little something in terms of handling. So we need to focus on these issues, trying to improve every time we go out”.

STEFAN BRADL

“Today we really had a lot of work to do, beginning with the last comparisons between the old and new frame we started at Jerez. This is a test that we did in both sessions. We decided to carry on with the new version, which provides some advantages going into turns. But there wasn’t much time, so there are still a few things left to sort, especially in terms of the rear. Tomorrow we’ll focus our efforts on improving coming out of turns as well, based on what we found today”.

More, from a press release issued by Team Suzuki Press Office:

TEAM SUZUKI ECSTAR KICKS OFF THE LE MANS GP

The first day of MotoGP™ practice at the Le Mans circuit in France saw both Team SUZUKI ECSTAR’s Aleix Espargaró and Maverick Viñales have an intense day testing the new set-up options they found at the recent Jerez test and the final classification of the day sees them both well into the leading group.

Both the crews had a very tight testing plan, trying different configurations in the electronics and, most importantly, in the set-ups. The result was that both riders recorded important improvements, and finally in the second Free Practice session saw them knock over a second off their morning times to place sixth for Espargaró and seventh for Viñales with times of 1’33.595 and 1’33.613 respectively.

The day was also positive with the new tyres that Michelin brought to Le Mans and feedback from the riders is positive. Espargaró also had an issue with his first bike, which switched off around the middle of the session while exiting the second run. The issue is now under investigation but it seems it came from an electronic failure.

Davide Brivio – Team Manager:

“It has been a very intense day for both riders as we had many ideas after the Jerez test and we wanted to explore some solutions. Today Aleix seemed to be the one who most liked the new set-ups, finding himself confident and improving his lap times consistently. He had a little electronic issue but this didn’t affect his work and the feedback he had about the GSX-RR behaviour was positive, although there are still some margins. Maverick instead had a little harder day, he had positive feelings after Jerez but here he hasn’t found the proper way to exploit at its best. We are still working on his set-up, he lacks in traction and we need to deliver him a bike that can support him in strong acceleration. Overall we are pretty positive, we are not so far from the top and we have some more things to test so tomorrow we will try to be more effective.”

Aleix Espargaró:

“It’s been a positive day and we made many improvements. After the test in Jerez we had some positive hints and now we are trying to take advantage from that. My feeling is better, I can ride the bike more easily and be more effective. This circuit is not easy for us, we are strong in high-speed corners but we suffer in the stop-and-go, so this is the area we are focusing our efforts. We need to find better balance and try to be more competitive in that. We continued the work with the winglets: I don’t think they can give us a real advantage in such a tight circuit as Le Mans, but it is important to get ready for faster tracks such as Mugello and Montmelò. I also tried the new Michelin tyre, it was important because the harder one will not be a good choice and to have two softer options is good, although I need to test them further.”

Maverick Viñales:

“Today’s been a tough day, the lap time is not bad but I still don’t feel totally confident. We are struggling a lot with traction, I can’t be so effective in exiting the slow corners and we are working with different set-up options but so far we couldn’t find the proper way. The new soft tyre is not bad, I liked it, probably the harder one will not be an option so we will work on the other two. We have much information coming from Jerez, we are trying to find the best ones and so far we couldn’t’ find it, but with the hard work we are used to doing I believe we will find better configurations for tomorrow.”

More, from a press release issued by Avintia Racing:

 Good start for Avintia Racing riders at Le Mans

Positive start of the French Grand Prix for the Avintia Racing riders Hector Barbera and Loris Baz. In the first practice session on Friday morning, Baz was able to get inside the ten fastest riders and in the FP2 in the afternoon, it was Hector who passed the cut. The Spaniard changed his working method for this weekend and he started to work for the race from today. After making several changes to the set up of his Ducati Desmosedici GP14.2, he showed a strong pace in FP2 to finish the day ninth in the combined time sheets. Tomorrow he expects to make another step forward to make his bike easier in the multiple changes of direction here at Le Mans, and try to defend his position inside the top 10 and go straight to Q2.

Loris Baz, who unveiled a special helmet for his home race today, crashed in both sessions. But the Avintia Racing rider knows why the crashes happened and he thinks he has the pace to be in the Top 10. His feeling has been great from the morning and he is eager to be in Q2 as he did in the last two rounds in Austin and Jerez, but this time in front of his home fans.

Hector Barbera | 1’33.951 | P9

“We did our job today and this ninth position is a good way to start. We have a different plan for this weekend compared to Jerez. There, we were very fast on the first day but we went moving backwards as the weekend continued. Today we were 13th in the morning and ninth in the afternoon, so I hope to keep this progression. This is a track I really like, but it features too much changes of direction and with my size it’s hard to move the bike. But after all the changes made on the set up by my crew, I enjoyed riding the bike at the end of the session. I feel more comfortable in every exit and we have to keep this direction and try to push harder in FP3 tomorrow to secure a place in Q2. But my main focus is to be ready for the race distance on Sunday. This is the most important thing.”

Loris Baz | 1’34.364 | P15

“I think the day was okay. My feeling with the bike has been great from this morning, I have a good pace and I also managed to do some fast laps. Of course the negative from today are the crashes, this is never good, but the positive is that we know why they happened. Anyway it was a shame because this afternoon I was quite sure to be in the top ten positions with the new rear tyre. I’m working like in the other races, because although this is my home race it would be stupid to pass the limits. The crashes today had nothing to do with this fact, because I always try to give my 100% on the bike. Tomorrow I hope the temperature is good during FP3 and I hope to be able to go straight to Q2. We just need to improve the bike to make it more nimble.”