Latest MotoGP Results

Summary of qualifying and results for MotoGP:

Summary of qualifying and results for Moto3:

Scintillating Spanish rookie Marc Marquez finished FP3 half a second quicker than the rest of the MotoGP field. The Repsol Honda rider's stunning lap time of 1:33.600 was close to the pole position time of last years French grand prix. Jorge Lorenzo finished in second place followed by the third of the championship contenders Dani Pedrosa. Ducati continued their impressive showing for the weekend thus far with Nicky Hayden finishing the session in fourth ahead of Cal Crutchlow and his Ducati teammate Andrea Dovizioso. An impressive Bradley Smith, Alvaro Bautista, Valentino Rossi and Stefan Bradl rounded out the top ten. 

An initially cool track saw the likes of Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi and Stefan Bradl fail to improve on their fastest lap times from Friday, while Alvaro Bautista suffered a heavy crash on the approach to the Dunlop chicane with six minutes to go in the session, Hector Barbera had a near identical spill, both riders were able to walk away. 

Results:

Scott Redding continues to dominate the Moto2 class at Le Mans, comfortably topping the second session of free practice in the afternoon. The young Englishman took the lead early in the session, then extended it to nearly three quarters of a second, before spending the rest of the session lapping faster than anyone else on track.

The sole exception was the man in second place, Thomas Luthi. The Interwetten rider chipped away at Redding's time, ending the session just under four tenths behind the Englishman. Luthi just pipped Julian Simon to second, finishing six thousandths ahead of the Spaniard, while Takaaki Nakagami ended FP2 in fourth. It was a tough session for Pol Espargaro, the Pons Tuenti HP 40 rider managing only the ninth fastest time, though the gap between ninth and  fourth is small, less than two tenths of a second. Tito Rabat, championship leader and fourth fastest in the morning, ended the afternoon session in fourteenth.

Results:

Alex Rins ended an incident-packed FP2 session for the Moto3 class on top of the timesheets, in a session cut short by the weather. The Estrella Galicia rider just edged ahead of Mapfre Aspar's Jonas Folger, while Luis Salom took third spot half a second behind Rins, and just ahead of Maverick Viñales. British rider Danny Webb ended in fifth, ahead of Niklas Ajo and Webb's Ambrogio teammate, Brad Binder.

A change in the weather thwarted Viñales' forward progress. The Red Bull KTM rider had fallen on his out lap, taking his time to get going again once he had returned to the pits. Spots of rain started falling shortly after the halfway mark, becoming more serious with some five minutes or so left, sending everyone back into the pits. A number of riders crashed during the session, though most of them during the dry first part, rather than due to the rain, with Efren Vazquez coming off worst, being taken to the Medical Center with a suspected fractured collar bone.

Results:

Dani Pedrosa has topped the timesheets in the first session of free practice for the MotoGP class at Le Mans. The Repsol Honda man was strong throughout practice, and held off a late challenge from Jorge Lorenzo to take first blood in France. Lorenzo was not far off, however: on his final lap, he got to within four hundredths of Pedrosa's time, setting the scene for a very close weekend.

Valentino Rossi also had a strong start, taking third spot behind his Yamaha Factory teammate, three tenths off the time of Pedrosa and ahead of a pair of Ducatis, Nicky Hayden grabbing fourth while Andrea Dovizioso secured fifth. Cal Crutchlow ended the session in sixth place, ahead of Marc Marquez, who is still learning his way around the track on a MotoGP bike. The two satellite Honda riders follow in eighth and ninth, Alvaro Bautista a couple of tenths quicker than Stefan Bradl, while Hector Barbera made his way into the top ten to grab the final spot in the provisional line up for QP2.

Three races into the 2013 MotoGP season, and the Yamaha Factory Racing team have been forced to tear up the script they had written for themselves after preseason testing. Their original goals were for Jorge Lorenzo to win as often as possible in the early part of the season, building a lead at the tracks at which Yamaha is supposed to be strong, then defend that lead in the second half of the year. Valentino Rossi, meanwhile, was to finish adapting to the Yamaha once again and get on the podium ahead of the Hondas as much as possible, to help build out Lorenzo's lead in the championship.

The plan worked perfectly at Qatar. Lorenzo was untouchable in the race, and won easily. Rossi showed he still had it by getting on the podium and taking second, while the first Honda was Marc Marquez in third. This worked out even better than expected, as although Marquez is clearly an exceptional talent, the real title threat, Yamaha believed, would come from Dani Pedrosa.

Race two, at Austin in Texas, went a little better and a little worse than anticipated. That Marquez would win there had been expected, after all, the Repsol Honda rookie had been quickest at the test. But Marquez' advantage over Lorenzo - and especially the gap from Pedrosa to Lorenzo - was much smaller than they had feared, putting Lorenzo within striking distance of the Repsol Hondas. For Valentino Rossi, on the other hand, things did not go so well, the Italian never feeling comfortable on the bike, and finishing behind two satellite riders, Monster Tech 3 Yamaha's Cal Crutchlow and the LCR Honda of Stefan Bradl.

Race three is where the plan started going horribly wrong. The Yamaha men arrived in Jerez supremely confident, after having dominated preseason testing there. Jerez was the start of a run of Yamaha tracks, where Lorenzo and Rossi - and maybe even Cal Crutchlow - would really start to shine, and put some clear blue water between themselves and the Repsol Hondas. It did not work out that way: the Yamahas struggled against the mighty Hondas, and Dani Pedrosa took a very easy victory. Adding insult to injury, Marc Marquez bumped Jorge Lorenzo out of second place, robbing the Yamaha man of the lead in the championship, and putting both Repsol Hondas ahead.

And now MotoGP heads to Le Mans, yet another track that is supposed to favor the Yamahas. Given Jorge Lorenzo's utterly dominant win in the soaking rain at the French circuit in 2012, it is easy to think that the Yamahas should have an easy time of it here. The danger is that riders, teams and fans follow the comfortable assumption that Le Mans is a Yamaha track, disregarding recent history there.