Jorge Martin, a rider from Pramac Ducati, showcased his dominance in Friday’s MotoGP practice sessions at the French Grand Prix. He achieved a clean sweep of the opening sessions at Le Mans, bouncing back from his previous race crash. In the second session, Martin set an impressive time of 1:30.388s, over a tenth quicker than Francesco Bagnaia’s Ducati. Unfortunately, Marc Marquez failed to secure a spot in the top 10, meaning he will have to participate in the initial stage of qualifying.
During the early stages of the session, Gresini Ducati’s rider, Marc Marquez, experienced a crash at Turn 12. His bike slid out from underneath him, resulting in lost time. Enea Bastianini also missed out on qualifying, falling short by a mere 0.010s. Surprisingly, home hero Fabio Quartararo managed to secure a place in Q2 despite struggling with his Yamaha bike.
Brad Binder faced difficulties extracting speed from his KTM, as he encountered two crashes at Turn 13 on both his first and last runs. On the other hand, Jack Miller successfully secured a spot in the top 10.
Rookie sensation Pedro Acosta continued to impress with a third-place finish, while his GasGas KTM teammate, Augusto Fernandez, struggled and finished in 16th place. Maverick Vinales achieved fourth place on his Aprilia, with Aleix Esparago in seventh on the sister bike. VR46’s Fabio Di Giannantonio and Miller were positioned between the two Aprilia riders.
Marco Bezzecchi ensured that both satellite Ducati VR46 riders remained within the top 10, aiming to maintain their momentum from Jerez. However, Honda faced another challenging outing, with none of their riders making it through to the next stage of qualifying. Johann Zarco was the fastest rider, less than one second away from the benchmark time.