Nakano 'very fast', Jacque 'very impressive'.

Kawasaki factory rider Shinya Nakano turned in a superb qualifying effort today at Le Mans, challenging for pole before securing sixth place on the grid for Sunday's French Grand Prix.

Riding his Ninja ZX-RR, Nakano was the highest placed Bridgestone rider; finishing just 0.3secs from the pole position claimed by Valentino Rossi, in a session run in mainly sunny but slightly overcast conditions.

Nakano was twice on the provisional front row during the one-hour session and with 13-minutes remaining he was the fastest rider on the 4.1 km Bugatti circuit. He briefly dropped to seventh and then surged to third quickest with five-minutes left to run in a highly competitive session, before finishing in a close sixth place.

"I was aiming for the second row, so sixth position is right where I wanted to be for the race," said Shinya. "I went faster on each qualifying run and tried for pole, it was very close.

"I did some race tyre runs early in the session, and it appears we have two options for the race if it is dry, and the Bridgestone wets have performed very impressively. I have good chassis balance in both the wet and the dry, especially for turn-in for all the slow corners, so we are ready for the race."

Team-mate and local hero Olivier Jacque will start from 13th position, in just his second race for Kawasaki as a replacement for the injured Alex Hofmann.

"I was much more comfortable in the dry conditions this afternoon compared to yesterday, although I'm still struggling a little in the final sector of the lap," admitted OJ.

"Yesterday I was hoping for rain, but now I'm really enjoying the ZX-RR in the dry, so I hope it is sunny for the race. The bike feels more balanced following adjustments to the engine brake system. I'm not paying attention to the hype, I'm just concentrating on the race."

The race day forecast is for showers, although both riders would prefer a continuation of this afternoon's warm and sunny conditions. Nevertheless, in the morning free practice session run on a wet track Jacque and Nakano were seventh and eighth fastest respectively, an indication they will contend for top ten results in the wet or dry.

"Shinya is very fast in both the dry and the wet, so I expect him to be very competitive no matter what the weather conditions for the race," confirmed team manager Harald Eckl. "Olivier goes faster in every session, despite a limited amount of test kilometres in dry conditions. He has been very impressive, especially in out-qualifying some regular MotoGP riders from Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha."