On Friday morning, we saw Maverick Viñales approaching the French GP as his home leg, as he was set to play on the team’s home turf. Track conditions were a bit tricky in the morning, following a fresh and humid night, but that did not bother an extremely motivated ‘Top Gun’. The best of his 21 laps of Free Practice 1 was a 1'31.637 sitting him in P10 at end of the play of the opening session, before heading to the key one-hour Practice session in the afternoon. Clearly appearing confident on his RC16, Viñales powered up from 13th to 4th in the timesheets after just 15 min into the afternoon’s Practice with a 1’31.206. He continued to work on his pace while provisionally staying in that top 10, until it was time to put on a fresh set of tyres and go for the first time-attacks. Maverick’s confidence on the KTM allowed him to push it a bit more and clock a solid 1’30.571 getting him close to the fastest lap of Marc Marquez. The following lap, he further improved to a 1’30.535 and sat just 0.005 seconds off Marquez! Unfortunately in the third lap, Viñales lost the front and crashed in sector 3 with just 12 minutes left on the clock. It was not a big crash, but the Spaniard had to quickly get changed and swap bikes. He could return on track with just 5 min left, while his position kept dropping down as others improved. The number 12 managed to save the show with an improved 1'30.490, which saw him complete Practice in 8th, and qualify directly to Q2!

Arriving in Le Mans with more confidence from the Jerez Test just two weeks ago, the winner of the 2022 French GP, Enea Bastianini, tried his RC16 on the Bugatti track. He completed 19 laps in the fresh Free Practice 1, one session that allowed him to draw the map of the weekend ahead. As he finished in 18th 1.546 seconds from the top, ‘Bestia’ headed to the afternoon’s Practice eager to continue improving. It appeared that some things clicked for the number 23, who provisionally sat in 11th at the doors of the top 10 before the time attacks. He managed to improve his lap time to a 1’30.801, to take P13 of Practice, to finish just 0.179 seconds off the top 10 spots, the closest Enea has been so far on a Friday. Step by step, let’s continue improving tomorrow, as MotoGP™ will be back for Super Saturday, starting with Free Practice 2 at 10:10 (UTC+2), followed immediately by the qualifying sessions. Then, Viñales and Bastianini will line up their RC16s on the starting grid for the Tissot Sprint, at 15h00.