Honda rider Luca Marini kicks off the French Grand Prix weekend with the fastest time – The supposed favorites stick with used tires and fail to set top times
The first fastest lap at the 2026 French Grand Prix at the Bugatti Circuit in Le Mans went to Honda. Luca Marini was the first rider in the field to break the 1:30 mark. Fabio Di Giannantonio (VR46-Ducati) and Pedro Acosta (KTM) took second and third place.
The first practice session took place under sunny skies with many fans already in the stands. Franco Morbidelli (VR46) was not allowed to start until five minutes in. It was a penalty because he had failed to park his smoking Ducati in Q1 at Jerez.
Following the Jerez test, there were several technical updates. Ducati ran a new chassis on all its bikes, including the two GP25s ridden by Morbidelli and Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini).
At KTM, Acosta used the new aero package. Honda also deployed the revised fairing, which resembles Aprilia’s. At Yamaha, Fabio Quartararo switched to last year’s aero, which gives him better front-end feel.
For Superbike World Champion Toprak Razgatlioglu, who also rode with the old wings on his Pramac Yamaha, the Bugatti Circuit was completely new territory. However, he saw this as an advantage, as it meant he didn’t have any Superbike lines in the back of his mind.
With track temperatures of 20 degrees Celsius, everyone ran the medium rear tire. The majority of riders chose the soft option up front. In the first run, Jorge Martin lost a “leg wing” from the seat fairing of his Aprilia.
For the final run, the two KTM riders, Acosta and Brad Binder, switched to the hard front tire, which has often worked very well with the RC16 in the past, especially on tracks with many braking zones like Le Mans.
Top favorites do not change tires
Five minutes before the end of practice, Marini set the day’s first lap under 1:31 minutes on new tires. The Honda rider initially remained the only one under 1:31 with a time of 1:30.857 minutes.
Di Giannantonio completed the entire session on a single set of tires. Shortly after the end of practice, he had a lap reinstated that had previously been disallowed due to track limits. This put the Italian in second place, just 0.054 seconds behind Marini.
Acosta moved up to third place, two-tenths of a second behind. Last year’s winner Johann Zarco (LCR-Honda) set the fourth-fastest time on used tires, sparking cheers in the stands.
Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse-Aprilia) finished with a new medium rear tire and took fifth place. Alex Rins also switched to a new medium rear tire at the end, improving to sixth place.
Unlike Quartararo, the Spaniard was running this year’s aerodynamics on his Yamaha. Jerez winner Alex Marquez (Gresini-Ducati) stuck with a single set of tires and finished the morning in seventh place.
Ai Ogura took eighth place on the second Trackhouse-Aprilia. World Champion Marc Marquez (Ducati) also stuck with a single set of tires and improved to ninth place at the end. He was half a second behind Marini.
Binder rounded out the top 10. The championship leader was in 14th place: Marco Bezzecchi also did not switch to new tires. He was 0.675 seconds behind. His Aprilia teammate Martin finished 15th, right behind him.
Jonas Folger is back in MotoGP action for the first time since Assen 2023. The German is standing in for Maverick Viñales on the Tech3 KTM team. As expected, Folger finished last in the field. He was 3.2 seconds behind.
There were no incidents or crashes in the first practice session. After the session, there was a scare during the practice starts. Zarco veered off the track to the left in the right-hand curve leading to the chicane because the front holeshot system was activated.
The afternoon practice session begins at 3:00 p.m. Then, as always, it will be decided which ten riders qualify directly for Q2.