Lap time analysis hints at two non-Ducatis letting French fans dream at Le Mans

The Le Mans circuit will be practically busting at the seams come Sunday as a record crowd of over 120,000 people - around 300,000 in total - is expected to pack into the iconic Bugatti track’s grass banks and grandstands.

Hopes of seeing something big happen on home soil for the passionate French crowd were significantly boosted last time out at the Spanish GP. Fabio Quartararo’s stunning pole lap, which he followed up with a first Yamaha podium since 2023 in the grand prix, was a timely reminder of the 2021 world champion’s quality.

But it also came at a point where Yamaha looks to genuinely be rounding a corner. A day later in the Jerez test it brought a new engine that delivered a little more power and was met with good reviews from its riders. Bringing that, plus an updated chassis to Le Mans, Quartararo did nothing on Friday to stick to his own words of caution pre-event.

He ended Friday second-fastest behind Marc Marquez and split the factory Ducatis at a venue the Italian marque has stamped its authority at ever year since 2020. To boot, his race pace was right up their as it was at Jerez.

The Tech3 team has also given the French fans some added podium hopes. Maverick Vinales may have crashed during the time attack phase of Practice, but his unrepresentative eighth on the timesheets hid a strong race pace on his KTM.

Marquez’s lap record and used tyre pace has left little doubt that he remains the favourite for victory this weekend, as he looks to rebound from a crash at Jerez. But any celebrations he hopes to have may well be overshadowed by what home favourite rivals could do.

Jerez crash hasn’t knocked Marc Marquez out of his stride

With ample time to reflect in the fortnight since, it became apparent to Marc Marquez that his crash out of the podium places early in the Spanish GP was down to his own impatience. On a smashed Ducati GP25, his race pace was enough to challenge for victory.

It was an error - his second in five rounds - that continued to prove the adage of MotoGP 2025 so far: the biggest threat to Marc Marquez is himself. Around his two race crashes, he has won all five sprints, qualified on pole four times and taken three grand prix victories.

He is clearly at one with the factory Ducati and that was even more evident on Friday at Le Mans. A year on from a frankly miserable Friday experience in France on the GP23, Marquez looked dialled in from the off.

On an modified chassis first trialled at the Jerez test, he appeared even more competitive. On it he was almost 0.6s clear of the field in FP1 on a medium tyre that had done 20 laps. And in Practice, he stormed to a new lap record of 1m29.855s to complete a clean sweep of sessions on day one of the sixth round.

Setting his best lap of FP1 on a 20-lap-old medium rear was a window into the strong used tyre pace he would show in Practice. He put 17 laps on a soft rear that could be the race option on Sunday provided it's cool enough and doesn’t rain - and there is a big possibility of that - and managed a 1m30.762s right at the end of his time on that tyre.

His average pace worked out at 1m31.289s from a representative sample of eight laps (with slow laps and cancelled laps removed). This doesn’t come up as the fastest of the field; that was Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, at 1m31.236s.

However, Quartararo put a total of 14 laps on his soft rear and his best lap when the tyre was oldest was a 1m31.228s - some 0.466s slower than Marquez was when his tyre was at its most used. It’s worth noting as well that this was also under a second from the lap record he set on a fresh soft at the end of Practice.

Alex Marquez, whose pace was decent but not at the level it was when he won at Jerez, noted that Sunday was likely a race for second. His older brother moved to quell this talk, pointing to the fact he was considered favourite at COTA and Jerez, where he crashed out of victory contention having been labelled then as the fastest.

That caution is justified and speaks to the lessons Marc Marquez has clearly learned since the Spanish GP. He’s fast, he knows this - everybody around him knows this. But there’s no need to over-stress it.

That, however, is something perhaps others can exploit.

Fabio Quartararo, Maverick Vinales in the mix at Le Mans

The biggest cheers for the day went the way of home hero Fabio Quartararo. All day he was fast on his Yamaha - which has been updated with a new, slightly more powerful engine, and modified chassis - just like he was at the Spanish GP.

The low-grip nature of Jerez left Quartararo somewhat bemused by Yamaha’s pace there. But at Le Mans it has been easier to understand: there’s more grip on track, the layout suits the M1 and the updates have helped, even if he says the new engine is “not a huge step”.

To cling onto Marc Marquez’s lap record time the way he did was commendable in itself. But to back that up with the long run pace he did has really legitimised Quartararo’s claim to a podium this weekend.

Based on the average pace calculations, he’s top two overall and is considerably quicker than the likes of Alex Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia. Jack Miller’s solid pace on the Pramac Yamaha further backs up Yamaha’s gains recently.

“I think the opportunity for us to really go is important,” he said. “I think it’s quite important to take it quite slowly, because this is a track where the tyre consumption and the grip is really high. When we arrive to Aragon, where the grip is low, we will go a little bit backwards to be realistic. But we have to take the opportunities when we have the performance on the bike.”

Quartararo’s weekend will hinge on qualifying, and really he needs to be on the front row. The tiny power gain Yamaha’s new engine has brought will likely be more help to him as a defence mechanism rather than something he can attack with.

That will be especially true if Tech3 KTM’s Maverick Vinales is anywhere near him, given the power of that RC16. Herve Poncharal’s squad will be feeling a lot of love from the French crowd this weekend and Vinales continues to be KTM’s point man.

His run to a podium in Qatar didn’t look to be a fluke based on his Jerez race pace, and that has very much continued into Le Mans. Such has been his performance so far, KTM’s factory team riders have gone in the bike direction Vinales has been using on Friday in France.

Vinales was only eighth on the timesheets after a late crash, but his one-lap speed had been such that he could have cracked the top three. His used tyre running was particularly impressive. The 2017 French GP winner’s average pace was 1m31.313s based on a 10-lap stint on the soft rear, while he managed a 1m30.991s on the 17th lap of that tyre.

“I’m happy with the rhythm,” he said. “Still we need to adjust the bike a little bit. I’m still sideways a bit too much in some parts of the track and that’s the reason why we crashed. But we felt quite confident. We restarted from where we left in Jerez…I’m quite optimistic that we can do a good job.”

Vinales believes he needs to find a bit more in time attack trim, but is feeling like he is understanding his RC16 more and more all the time.

Marc Marquez may be the favourite, but his recent mistakes could well come to benefit both Quartararo and Vinales if they make good on their Friday form and get themselves in the hunt. Both could be in a position to mount pressure enough for Marquez to crack, or indeed lead him to avoiding a fight altogether if he recognises where his main title rivals are.

Pecco Bagnaia resigned to “not finding what I want” from the Ducati

Pecco Bagnaia heads into Saturday at Le Mans just 20 points back in the championship, which really isn’t bad at all given he hasn’t really had the pace to show up Ducati team-mate Marc Marquez yet this season.

But he has already resigned himself to battling for a best of second under normal circumstances this weekend. That isn’t without some merit. His average pace was 1m31.515s on soft rubber, while his speed on old rubber didn’t stack up to that of his team-mate.

Over a single lap, Bagnaia wasn’t far off being Marc Marquez’s nearest challenger on Friday. But he’s just not finding what he needs from the front-end of his 2025 Ducati and admits now that the bike simply can't offer him it.

“I cannot do what I want with the front of the bike,” he said.

Up until now both Bagnaia and Ducati have believed they could figure out his limitations by resetting the bike around him. Clearly, the Jerez test didn’t provide what he’d hoped and he now has no choice but to adapt.

Arguably, that puts him five rounds behind the curve. But if he can come away from Le Mans with a runner-up spot, that would be a major victory under the circumstances.

That won’t be easy, though. He believes he’s in the group with Quartararo and Vinales to battle for second, but both Gresini Ducati riders Alex Marquez and Fermin Aldeguer showed well on race pace to get in on that fight too, as has KTM's Pedro Acosta…