Honda caused a stir on the opening day of the MotoGP French Grand Prix by topping the times across the two practice sessions.
While Honda was always expected to be competitive at Le Mans following Johann Zarco’s brilliant wet-weather victory there last year, its pace on Friday was particularly striking given the track remained dry throughout the day.
Factory rider Luca Marini led the way in the first session to get the ball rolling, before Zarco stamped his authority in the second session with a time of 1m29.907s. This put him a hundredth of a second ahead of VR46’s in-form man Fabio di Giannantonio, and comfortably clear of two other Ducatis of Francesco Bagnaia and Alex Marquez.
If Zarco was the only Honda rider to star in the session, his performance would have been seen as an outlier. But even Joan Mir finished just 0.185s behind in fifth, beating the factory Aprilias of Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi. Marini and rookie Diogo Moreira couldn’t make it into Q2, but the sight of two Honda bikes inside the top five was quite unusual – and there is reason to believe Zarco and Mir’s pace was genuine.
Honda had made a fairly sizeable step forward with the RC213V over the winter, but much of these gains had been negated by improvements made by other manufacturers.
However, Zarco explained that Honda riders have started extracting the maximum out of the package after last month’s Jerez test, with the Bugatti layout also working in the bike’s favour.
Johann Zarco, Team LCR Honda
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
“Compared to last year, the first corner, which is a fast one on brakes, I feel very confident,” Zarco said. “It’s so good to have this.
“But in general, we have gained brake and acceleration. That is the base of our bike compared to last year. That’s why it was more difficult for me to turn into the corner, but now with more and more laps, and the [Jerez] test, trying different set-ups, we start to understand how to bring this bike into the corner and to use this potential.
“So compared to last year, on this track, I think just the basic braking and acceleration raise the level of all the riders.”
He added: “I was not able to use the potential of the bike [this year]. But now since Austin and Jerez, I did some improvements on small things and I’m pretty happy that it’s paying off.”
Mir, who propelled the factory Honda team back to the podium at the end of last year, pointed to the front-end strength of the RC213V at Le Mans.
“I feel here the feeling with the front part of the bike is very important,” he said. “With this track, with the conditions and the asphalt, it’s hard to get a good feeling with the front. That’s why we see a lot of crashes.
Joan Mir, Honda HRC
Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography / LAT Images / via Getty Images
“We do have a good feeling with that front end and I would say that is the reason we are fast.”
Honda struggled with grip issues for several years, despite the marque’s best efforts to overcome the problem.
However, the Bugatti circuit inherently offers more grip, masking one of the last remaining weaknesses of the bike.
“Normally here, the grip level is quite high in Le Mans, and that is helping us,” he explained.
“The tracks where the grip is very low are the tracks where we struggle the most. Here, the grip level is high, so the feeling is important and we have a good feeling. Also, Johann is very charged because he’s from here and that is for sure helping a lot.”
Marini’s hopes of getting into Q2 were compromised by a mistake on his first run, before yellow flags and traffic left him down 16th. Nevertheless, he ended up just 0.556s off the pace in a closely-contested session.
Luca Marini, Honda HRC
Photo by: Pierre-Louis Le Mouëllic
Marini did not offer a proper explanation as to where Honda has made the biggest improvements after the Japanese manufacturer opted not to bring a major upgrade package to the Jerez test. However, he was adamant Honda still has work to do to close the gap to the front.
“We are doing our best, and compared to last season, we improved quite a lot,” he said. “We are doing a good step forward with small details and small upgrades, but always [moving] in the good direction.
“Still, we need something more because today it was a little bit strange to find all three Hondas, maybe also Diogo sometimes [near the front]. So we still need to work more because it’s not enough.”
Most manufacturers tend to hide their true pace in Friday practice, so it’s possible Honda will drop down the order during qualifying. But Le Mans marks the best start Honda has made to a weekend this year.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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