08/05/2026

Johann Zarco wows home fans with fastest Friday practice time

Johann Zarco raised his home crowd’s hopes of a repeat French Grand Prix victory by going fastest in practice on Friday afternoon at Le Mans.

Riding an LCR Honda, as he did on his way to victory on the wet Bugatti circuit a year ago, Zarco pipped the VR46 Ducati of Fabio Di Giannantonio on a dry and sunny day that went mostly to script.

One major exception to that was Marc Marquez’s failure to make it through to Q2 aboard the factory Ducati. The MotoGP legend’s struggles appeared to be continuing as the day wore on, with few signs that he had the requisite pace. His final attempt to make the top 10 was then scuppered by none other than his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia, who fell ahead of him and brought out lap-ruining yellow flags.

Bagnaia was safely through by that stage, having set a time that would prove good enough for third on the timesheets.

Spanish Grand Prix winner Alex Marquez left it late to make it into the top 10, but got the Gresini Ducati into the safe zone with just two minutes left on the clock.

Points leader Marco Bezzecchi also cut it fine aboard the factory Aprilia, popping into the top 10 even later than Alex did. That concluded a solid, quiet day for the Italian, who will be joined in Q2 by his team-mate Jorge Martin despite an early excursion into the gravel for the Spaniard.

Alex Marquez, Gresini Racing

Photo by: Loic Venance / AFP via Getty Images

Joan Mir doubled Honda’s joy on the Japanese marque’s most promising day of the year so far, breezing into Q2 with fifth-fastest time. Meanwhile, Alex Rins delivered a major surprise by slotting the struggling Yamaha M1 into eighth place on the timesheets. To put that in perspective, the 2025 polesitter, his team-mate Fabio Quartararo, was down in 17th, with the rest of the Yamahas for company.

Completing the list of names to make Q2 directly were Ai Ogura (Trackhouse Aprilia) and KTM rider Pedro Acosta. The latter did things the hard way, squeezing into 10th place after falling with 11 minutes to go. He went down at the very end of a lap that looked set to be the fastest of the session at that point, and had to scurry back for the spare bike, on which he did just enough to scrape through.

Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) didn’t make it after parking a bike that was spewing flames. He’ll be joined in Q1 by 2025 Le Mans podium finisher Fermin Aldeguer, who crashed his Gresini Ducati in the middle part of the session and was unable to rediscover his rhythm.