Valentino Rossi felt the benefit of some hard work on his M1 bike as he set the best time of the first practice session at the Monster Energy Grand Prix de France on Friday afternoon.

The Italian and his Fiat Yamaha crew made some significant improvements to the settings of his machine during the Jerez Test almost three weeks ago, and the results were evident at Le Mans where his time of 1’34.402 placed him at the top of the timesheet in the opening session of the third round.

"I'm really happy about this practice and especially about my last lap, which was very quick,” said Rossi, who set his fast time on his 28th and final turn of the hour-long session. “During the Test after Jerez we got a better understanding of the problems we had and managed to improve our setting a lot, and that's where we've started from today. It's good to be this fast already.”

Rossi’s display came despite some lingering pain in his recovering shoulder, which he is hopeful will subside as the weekend plays out.

“Unfortunately I still have some pain in my shoulder in the two or three hard braking areas, but I hope with the adrenaline tomorrow and Sunday it will be better and won't cause a problem,” said the reigning World Champion. “Our bike is historically very good here and it feels great in the twisty parts especially, so we're hopeful for a good weekend."

Rossi’s team-mate, rival and current Championship leader Jorge Lorenzo overcame some slight electronic issues at the start of the practice by changing machines and then lapped at a consistent pace, eventually setting the third best time at just 0.140s off the Italian’s marker.

"At the start of the session we had a small problem on one bike with the electronics but we swapped to the other bike and things were okay from there,” said Lorenzo, who won last year’s race at the circuit. “Little by little I found a good pace and at the end I was able to do a lot of laps in the 1‘34s.”

Concluding, Lorenzo added: “My bike feels good here - as everyone says it is always a good track for Yamaha - and although we are still struggling a bit in the acceleration I am feeling good."