Le Mans special for former French resident Nakano.

Following the start of the European session in Jerez a fortnight ago, MotoGP descends on the legendary Le Mans track this weekend, where new d'Ant?n Yamaha rider Shinya Nakano is aiming to restart his season in front of the many fans who remember him from his Tech 3 days.

Le Mans special for former French resident Nakano.

Following the start of the European session in Jerez a fortnight ago, MotoGP descends on the legendary Le Mans track this weekend, where new d'Ant?n Yamaha rider Shinya Nakano is aiming to restart his season in front of the many fans who remember him from his Tech 3 days.

Le Mans is one of Nakano's favourite tracks, with the Japanese claiming a runner-up finish in his 250cc days. A good result this Sunday also would go someway towards erasing the memory of two bad races: In Welkom the bike staled at the start after Nakano's excellent qualifying performance, while in Spain - the team's home GP - Shinya was left in eighth place.

But after last week's Mugello tests, where the team got some new parts from Yamaha, everyone at Luis D'Antin's team is confident of a good result this weekend.

"Although Le Man's is a track I like, it's quite difficult and you need very good acceleration," stated Nakano. "It's a stop-and-go track, and I will give my maximum to get the best possible result for the team. For me it is also a special GP, because even though I'm now in a Spanish team and I live in Spain, I lived almost four years in France and I have some good fans there. So I want to show them something different from so far this year."

"Le Mans is very different from Jerez, and in the last few years the Yamahas worked very well in the French track, and that's why we expect better results," added Technical Director Naoya Kaneko. "In the Mugello tests we got some new parts and we expect them to improve our performance. We are going to work hard all weekend, lets see what happens on Sunday."

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