Marc Marquez is in trouble. Thus, without anesthesia. On a day when his physical condition cannot be an excuse, because in the morning in FP1 he signed his first save for the right profile, the one with the injured arm, after the injury in July 2020, the eight-time champion of the world has qualified only 15th at the start of the French GP. The Le Mans circuit has seen him win four times in the past and after the first day it is hard to believe that he will do it again this Sunday, but he is Márquez and the best can always be expected from him, especially if they get it right once for all that this Honda, better than last year’s, is finally to your liking.
The Repsol Honda rider was 1,357 short of the lead occupied by Enea Bastianini, and that is an outrage rarely seen before, or ever, considering who it is. Nor look for the wheel of Pecco On this occasion, he helped Marc to climb positions. Strange… As for the Italian, he rode extremely fast with a time of 1:31.148, which is a new record on the French track, smashing the previous record by 37 thousandths, in power of Johann Zarco with Yamaha since 2018. That time has given him an advantage at the top of the time table 0.202 over an Aleix Espargaró who also looks very connected with the Aprilia on this track.
In addition to the first two, the other eight drivers who have gained provisional direct access to Q2, and this time it may be more important than others because storms are expected for the weekend, are Rins, Zarco, Bagnaia, Quartararo, Brad Binder, Mir, Pol (he did not improve his time in the morning that led him to lead FP1) and Martín.
There were several crashes, those of Mir (quite fast in turn 7, but without consequences), Miller, Bezzecchi, Marini, the aforementioned Bastianini, Morbidelli and Álex Márquez. The one who was saved from a hard stick was Zarco, who in a fast exit from the track ended up doing motocross with his Ducati.
They will have to try to gain positions tomorrow in FP3, if it doesn’t rain, Maverick 13th, Márquez 15th, Álex Márquez 19th and Fernández 23rd.