The French GP was a tough race for Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez, who nevertheless showed grit and determination to overcome their difficulties and bring home as many points as the situation allowed.

Pedrosa started from 11th on the grid and struggled at the beginning to get a good pace, but remained focused and recovered as much ground as possible. With some assistance also from other riders crashing, he finished in a solid fourth position and earned 13 important points to maintain fourth place in the championship standings.

One of the aforementioned crashes unfortunately involved his teammate Marquez on lap 7, while he was fighting for second position with Andrea Dovizioso and Valentino Rossi. Marc re-joined the race in last place and finished 13th, earning three championship points.

Marc currently lies second in the overall standings, five points down on Jorge Lorenzo.

Dani Pedrosa

4th

“I cannot feel satisfied with today’s fourth place because obviously I would prefer be much higher up the order and have better races. I give my all, but the conditions are not always there to do well. We are also making some mistakes, and one that is hurting us most is in qualifying, because starting far back makes things more difficult in the race. At the beginning of the race today we did not have good grip and it was hard to get enough of a feeling to go a little faster. The second part of the race went better, and there were some laps in which I even rode quicker than Rossi's pace, but it was too late. What makes a difference is starting well, starting high up on the grid and putting in good opening laps.”

Marc Marquez

13th

“It was a pity about the crash today. I was having a good race, but these things can happen when you’re at the limit on every lap. I could have opted for a more conservative race, but here you can end up far back if you do that, so today I had to take risks. In the race I saw that I was losing ground under acceleration, and I had to make that back with my braking. Finally I lost the front and crashed. The positive is that I managed to get three points and I’m only five off Jorge Lorenzo in the standings, which isn’t a lot. Now we have a run of tracks that we found a little tough last year, but they’re quite different to Jerez and Le Mans, so I hope to be fast and have some good races."

MotoGP 2016
Race Round 5   France

Results Session

Dry
Humidity
40%
Track Temp
35°C
Air Temp
22°C
Pos. Rider Num Nation Points Team Constructor Time/Gap
1 Lorenzo Jorge 99 SPA 25 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 43'51.290
2 Rossi Valentino 46 ITA 20 Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Yamaha 10.654
3 Vinales Maverick 25 SPA 16 Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 14.177
4 Pedrosa Dani 26 SPA 13 Repsol Honda Team Honda 18.719
5 Espargaro Pol 44 SPA 11 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 24.931
6 Espargaro Aleix 41 SPA 10 Team Suzuki Ecstar Suzuki 32.921
7 Petrucci Danilo 9 ITA 9 Octo Pramac Yakhnich Ducati 38.251
8 Barbera Hector 8 SPA 8 Avintia Racing Ducati 38.504
9 Bautista Alvaro 19 SPA 7 Aprilia Racing Aprilia 48.536
10 Bradl Stefan 6 GER 6 Aprilia Racing Aprilia 54.502
11 Laverty Eugene 50 IRE 5 Aspar Team Ducati 1'02.677
12 Baz Loris 76 FRA 4 Avintia Racing Ducati 1'07.658
13 Marquez Marc 93 SPA 3 Repsol Honda Team Honda 1 lap
14 Smith Bradley 38 GBR 0 Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Yamaha 9 laps
15 Miller Jack 43 AUS 0 EG 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 11 laps
16 Dovizioso Andrea 4 ITA 0 Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 13 laps
17 Iannone Andrea 29 ITA 0 Ducati Lenovo Team Ducati 17 laps
18 Rabat Tito 53 SPA 0 EG 0,0 Marc VDS Honda 21 laps
19 Crutchlow Cal 35 GBR 0 LCR Honda Honda 22 laps
20 Hernandez Yonny 68 COL 0 Aspar Team Ducati 22 laps
21 Redding Scott 45 GBR 0 Octo Pramac Yakhnich Ducati 23 laps
Location Information

Built in 1965 around the existing 24-Hour track, the Le Mans Bugatti Grand Prix race circuit lies 5km south of the city of Le Mans and 200km south-west of Paris. The venue has hosted Grand Prix since the late sixties but a serious accident to Spanish rider Alberto Puig in… read more.

Length 4.185 kilometres / 2.6 miles
Width 13 metres
Left corners 5
Right corners 9
Longest straight 0.674 kilometres / 0.419 miles
Constructed 1966
Modified 2008
Resurfacing Resurfaced before 2017 round

Automobile Club de l'Ouest, Le Mans, France - View in Google Maps

www.lemans.org

Records

Pole Position 1m 30.450s (166.5km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2022)
Race Lap 1m 31.778s (164.1km/h) Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati, 2022)
Race Time 41m 34.613s (163 km/h) Enea Bastianini (Ducati, 2022)
2022 Race Winner Enea Bastianini (Ducati)