Jorge Martín was unstoppable on Friday at the French MotoGP Grand Prix. The championship leader set a new lap record in Le Mans during the afternoon practice session.
Martín (Prima Pramac/Ducati) led the way initially, ahead of Fabio Di Giannantonio (Pertamina Enduro VR46/Ducati) and Pedro Acosta (Red Bull GasGas Tech3/KTM).
However, Marc Márquez (Gresini/Ducati) quickly took over the lead, with Martín slipping to second. Martín regained the lead thanks to an improvement, although Acosta moved up to first place. Marc Márquez suffered the first crash of the session at turn 4, without any consequences.
Times continued to improve, and Acosta was eventually overtaken by Maverick Viñales (Aprilia) and Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati), who took the top two positions, respectively. Acosta was in third place. With 25 minutes remaining, Martín reclaimed the lead, being 0.054s faster than Viñales.
With 18 minutes to go, Enea Bastianini (Ducati) positioned himself in second place, 0.026s behind the leader. In the final 15 minutes, there were several improvements, with Di Giannantonio leading by almost half a second over Acosta. Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia) briefly rose to third.
With five minutes left, Martín returned to the top of the timing sheets, while Di Giannantonio improved but was relegated to second. Espargaró reclaimed third place.
No one could match Martín’s pace, as he set an even faster lap and a new circuit record: 1m30.388s. He outpaced Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) by 0.145s, with Acosta in third, 0.187s behind. The top five was rounded out by Viñales and Di Giannantonio.
A crash by Bastianini in the final minute prevented further improvements due to yellow flags. Jack Miller (Red Bull KTM) finished sixth, Espargaró in seventh ahead of Franco Morbidelli (Prima Pramac/Ducati), while Marco Bezzecchi (Pertamina Enduro VR46/Ducati) was ninth and Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha) secured the tenth spot, with just ten thousandths of a second advantage over Bastianini in 11th, guaranteeing the final direct spot in Q2.
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