Yamaha Factory Racing riders Jorge Lorenzo and Ben Spies took to the Le Mans circuit today for the first two practice sessions of the French Grand Prix. Although dark clouds threatened to dampen the sessions, the riders were lucky to enjoy dry track time throughout. Lorenzo started the day missing some rear grip from his YZR-M1 on corner entry but was able to make some set up changes and improve in the second session to finish the day third in the combined times.

Spies enjoyed a positive first day at Le Mans apart from a fast crash going into turn two midway through the second session. The Texan rider was unhurt and able to immediately continue the practice on his second bike. A consistently quick pace saw him wrap up day one in fifth place on the combined times.

Jorge Lorenzo - Position 3rd - Time 1.34.136 - Laps 20

“This morning we had some difficulty entering the corners, I didn’t trust the bike so much. This afternoon we made some changes to the rear and it improved the feeling and the lap time a lot. I did a half race simulation and we had a good pace. We are now ready for a dry race but everyone says it is going to rain which will completely change the conditions.”

Ben Spies - Position 5th - Time 1.34.467 - Laps 18

“Today was ok, to be top five both sessions is good after Estoril, especially here where I’ve struggled in the past. I made a small mistake this afternoon, got into turn one pretty fast and was too fast into turn two so couldn’t make the corner. I got on the second bike and was pleased we were still able to go fast as we had a lot of laps on the front tyre. The bike seems to be working pretty well here so we’ll keep going and see what we can do tomorrow.”

Wilco Zeelenberg - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Manager

“Not an easy first day of practice, this morning we struggled a bit with rear traction, especially during braking. We had the same issue in Estoril and we learned quite a bit there so we were able to make it a lot better. The handling improved a lot as a result in the afternoon. I think we need to make another step tomorrow but we are happy with the pace from the second practice.”

Massimo Meregalli - Yamaha Factory Racing Team Director

“A good start for Ben today apart from an unfortunate crash in the second session, luckily he was unhurt so we could continue. Ben was able to do a lot of laps on a very used front tyre; this is encouraging for the race. Jorge made good improvements after struggling for rear grip this morning and we expect another step tomorrow. Let’s hope the weather forecast is wrong or today’s work will not be very useful!”



The Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team's all-important home race at the legendary Le Mans circuit in France kicked off in positive fashion today, with Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow posting competitive times on the opening day of MotoGP practice.

Italian Dovizioso made an impressive start to the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France when a lap of 1.35.065 placed him third on the timesheets in this morning's opening session.

Concentrating on improving grip in cool and cloudy conditions and working on tyre endurance, Dovizioso was able to knock almost 0.5s off his time in this afternoon's second session and his quickest lap of 1.34.585 secured him a place inside the top six on combined times.

Dovizioso is confident with further improvements to his YZR-M1 machine for tomorrow's final practice and qualifying that he will be capable of challenging for a podium place in Sunday's 28-lap race.

Le Mans has been a happy hunting ground for Dovizioso and it is the track where he has enjoyed the most success in his Grand Prix career, having collected an impressive seven podium finishes.

Crutchlow also enjoyed a satisfactory start to the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team's home event and the 26-year-old was only 0.025s behind Dovizioso in seventh position on the combined timesheets.

Crutchlow's brilliant form in the opening three races of 2012 has seen him make the best start to a MotoGP campaign for a British rider since 1988 and after clocking a time of 1.35.318 this morning, he improved his pace by over 0.7s in the second session.

This weekend is only Crutchlow's second visit to the historic Bugatti track and he dedicated his time to building up his experience of the stop and go circuit while concentrating on gaining better turning performance with his YZR-M1 machine.

Andrea Dovizioso - Position 6th - Time 1.34.585 - Laps 43

“I am very happy because the dry conditions meant we could concentrate on working on the set-up of the bike and my feeling has improved a lot with the Yamaha. I was third fastest this morning but I did two good practice sessions worki ng a lot on the race set-up of the bike, particularly with the endurance of the Bridgestone tyres. My best lap time came with 23 laps on the rear tyre, so this is very positive and shows that my pace for the race is not bad at all. We just need to fine-tune the set-up of the bike tomorrow but we don't have any big problems where we have to think about making some big modifications. I would like to improve my feeling a little bit with the front tyre and I hope it will be dry tomorrow and we can continue improving the bike. But even if rains we are already in a good point to be fighting for a really good result in the race on Sunday.”

Cal Crutchlow - Position 7th - Time 1.34.610 - Laps 41

“We have a couple of small problems but nothing that I don't think we can fix ahead of the race. I can't get the bike to turn into the corner as I' d like and I'm losing a little bit of time in that area. We will have a sit down tonight and see if we can come up with a set-up that will improve the turning. To be honest, Le Mans is not the best circuit for me and it is quite difficult. I've only been here once before and I crashed in the race last year, so a big part of my job today was just trying to gain some more experience with the layout. It was still a positive day and I am really close to Andrea and Ben, so with an improvement to the turning of the bike, I'm sure I can be even more competitive. The weather might not be as good tomorrow but I am ready for anything and determined to do the best job I can for Tech 3 and Monster this weekend.”

.