Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP |News details:Quartararo Claims Entry into French GP Q2 on Le Mans Friday

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Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP’s Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins were pushing hard in perfectly sunny conditions on the first day of the Michelin Grand Prix de France. Home hero Quartararo dug deep to secure a Q2 entry, taking 10th position in the afternoon Practice classification. Rins put in a full day of work and ended the Friday in 14th place in the Practice results. He will take part in Q1 tomorrow.

Le Mans (France), 10th May 2024

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP's Fabio Quartararo and Álex Rins were met with loud cheers at the Le Mans circuit today, giving them an extra boost at the start of the Michelin Grand Prix de France weekend. Quartararo was especially keen to secure a place in the top 10 to please his passionate fans. The Yamaha pair ultimately ranked 10th and 14th respectively in the Practice results, putting Quartararo on the Q2 entry list for tomorrow and Rins in Q1.

Quartararo was fully motivated to start his home GP. He used the sunny morning session and 1-hour afternoon session to prepare for some solid time-attack action at the end of the afternoon Practice. He was already featuring inside the top 10 before the time attack really got underway. But knowing the pace would quicken towards the end, the Frenchman upped his efforts a notch. He improved to a 1’30.788s, set on lap 24/26, reaching 7th place at the time. When the dust settled after the final hectic minutes, he was in 10th, 0.400s off today's fastest time.

Rins started the French GP with the objective to work on the tyres. As the Le Mans track's key areas are late braking, hard acceleration, and rear end traction, he was keen to draw a comparison between the different tyre options. He was making progress throughout the day, and in the Practice he climbed as high as 11th, with four minutes on the clock. But as the tension rose and the times dropped further and further, the yellow flags also came out. Rins' 1’31.206s, set on lap 25/28, held him in 14th position in the Practice rankings, 0.818s from first.

Tomorrow, the teammates will be back in action for FP2, held from 10:10 - 10:40 (GMT +2). The qualifying sessions will follow from 10:50 - 11:30, and the 13-lap Sprint will start at 15:00.

Massimo Meregalli

Team Director

We are very happy for Fabio about today's result. He is getting such great support from the fans here in Le Mans, and I'm sure it has helped him to dig just that bit deeper and deliver that great lap. Being in Q2 is always our goal, at every GP, but it's not easy to achieve. They say 'a good start is half the battle' and, for us, being in Q2 certainly helps. Álex' pace was also decent. He has been working hard today, but the bike performance wasn’t as he had hoped. Because of that he didn't get a place inside the top 10. The team will help him set up for tomorrow to see if we can find a bit more time and take a shot at the top 2 in Q1.

Fabio Quartararo

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

This top 10 on Friday here in Le Mans feels great. The lap time was good. I was pushing to the limit. After my first time attack, I was already in P8, I think. So, I had to push even more, and I did improve. It was on the limit again. But more important than being in Q2 is that we are only about 0.2s from third place. This is really positive! I think that when everything is at 100%, we can be closer to our opponents. The helmet I debuted today was a means of celebration with the fans, also to celebrate my renewal with Yamaha. I wanted to create something fun and different. And also the boots and gloves look great.

Álex Rins

Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP Rider

It was not bad. We were working with a different tyre strategy compared to the previous GPs. This morning after using the medium tyre, we went straight to the soft tyre to see if we were able to do laps and laps on this tyre during the practice, and it was not bad. For sure, whilst working on the tyres, the lap time was not the best it could have been. But we are working in a good way. That said, we do have some things to work on: we have some spin, and the traction is quite low. But in the end, we are not so far from the front compared with other circuits in terms of seconds, and we still have room to improve.