Soggy Start to Le Mans Weekend for Movistar Yamaha MotoGP

The Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team riders started their quests at the Grand Prix de France today with the first free practice sessions, ahead of Sunday's race.Viñales started the morning session with the goal to continue the progress made in the Jerez test and spurted to the top of the timesheets 15 minutes into FP1, with a 142.546s. He spent the rest of the time comparing settings, bettering his fastest lap to a 141.307s in the process, and finished in tenth place,3.840s from the front.The Spaniard was quick to pick up where he left off during FP2, this time in full wet conditions after a midday downpour. He soon moved into the top4 as he continued to perfect the set-up of his YZR-M1. He saved his best for his last stint and dropped a 1'42.894s to end FP2 in eighth place, 1.221s from the top. Unable to improve on his fastest lap from this morning, he remained in tenth position in the combined standings. Maverick Vinales, 10th - 1'41.307 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team "For me it was a good day, because we could improve the bike a bit in the rain and I feel comfortable already with the bike. I think step by step we are improving in the rain. In the end, I didn't put in the soft tyre, I was too late, I could only get two laps in on the dry tyres. For me, ultimately, the position doesn't matter, it's the feeling in the wet and that we improved the bike that counts. I hope it will stay dry so we can work well. Our bike is working good here, so we can do a good result again." Massimo Meregalli Movistar Yamaha Moto GP Team Director "Today's morning conditions were exactly what we hoped to avoid. The track was still drying in the morning, which meant that we were unable to collect any really good information, like we did in the fully wet afternoon session. Even though it doesn't look like its going to rain over the next two days, it's been important to ride in the wet, as this allowed us to make another step in terms of the set-up for rainy conditions. We expect that it will be dry from now on and we will start FP3 with the information that we collected two weeks ago during the Le Mans test, especially concerning Maverick. Vale will continue to evaluate the two different settings he compared in FP1 which gave him a good impression."