Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi made it Yamaha 1-2 at Le Mans, with an off-rhythm Marc Marquez almost 20 seconds down in 4th, despite having soared effortlessly to the top of morning warmup hours before. It was a typical Lorenzo performance; every lap, save for the first and last, was a consistent 1:33. The man is a chronometer. Rossi’s fastest lap came late in his race and was the quickest of the event. “Lorenzo was in his hammer time, said Rossi. “When he’s like that, it is very difficult to come close to him.” Lorenzo took the lead from Andrea Dovizioso’s fast-starting Ducati at the first chicane but the two Ducatis remained strong before their tire drops came on laps 10-12. Dovi’s was less severe, but Andrea Iannone was riding with pain medication for a shoulder injury. Dovi was on the podium again with 3rd, and Iannone 5th. Said Marquez: “Today, the temperature rose sharply. We had not ridden in such conditions at any time this the weekend.” Marquez is famous for his hectic braking style with rear wheel coming up and the bike hunting from side to side, then nailing the apex, lifting quickly, and accelerating away. Today such “carpentry” escaped him, as his soft front tire would not perform as expected at a track temperature 36 degrees (F) hotter than in the warmup. 
Why, when all the top riders were on the same soft/soft Bridgestone combination, did Marquez have this trouble? First of all, it wasn’t just Marquez—all the Hondas had front grip issues and Marquez was the only one to stay upright. Pedrosa, newly returned to the series after arm-pump surgery, was 7th on lap 1, then fell and rejoined in last on lap 2. Scott Redding was gone on lap 4 and Cal Crutchlow on lap 8. It was a Honda massacre. Marquez said he began having trouble with the front end on the fourth lap. In the warmup, he had reeled off eight superbly quick and consistent laps, rather in Lorenzo style, to make Lorenzo himself 2nd by a full two-tenths of a second. It was looking like a Marquez cruise again: “We knew that with a rise in temperature, conditions change,” said Marquez, “but we expected it to be for the better and this time it was for the worse. We must learn from this race and especially from the data we have gathered." Why should it affect the Hondas this way, and the Yamahas and Ducatis quite differently? It comes back to the two styles of riding and to the contrasting motorcycles built for those styles. The Honda men brake late and very hard, get the bike turned, then lift and accelerate. The Yamaha men are now showing a wider range of styles, but in general, to benefit from high speed all the way through the corner, they must be gentle with tires. That calls for softer spring and damping rates, and for earlier, less severe braking, and above all, for smooth transitions from braking to turning, from turning to acceleration. 
The Hondas need a stiffer fork set-up that can very quickly accept 100 percent weight transfer to the front without bottoming. The Yamahas, by contrast, need maximum corner grip, and that calls for soft spring and damping rates all the way to the bottom of the fork travel. The last thing they need is a sudden stiffening near the bottom of fork travel, for this is where the bike rides in mid-corner. Yamaha corner speed depends upon keeping constant load on tires. Now we can see that the Honda riding style, combined with a 36-degree track temperature rise, could push the tires to the edge. Here’s Lorenzo’s view: “Before the race, I was a little bit worried about the front tire on the right side because it was closing in some corners [“closing” means losing grip and beginning to turn in]. Sometimes that’s worse in the race on Sunday because it’s hotter at 2 o’clock and you have more fuel in the tank and push more on braking. On the third or fourth lap it started closing and I started worrying that I had an ever-worsening tire in the next laps, but luckily for us the tire stayed more or less the same. “It was important to be 2nd and overtake Marc at the start and Dovizioso in the first corner. This is the way I prefer to ride, because with nobody in front I can brake perfectly, keep the corner speed, and try to increase the gap...I needed to win this race.” Many people will proclaim this a “Marquez crisis” and believe that Yamaha has closed on Honda technologically. Lorenzo commented: “The Honda I think is the same or maybe a little bit better that last year, but luckily for us we improve the braking and entry for the corners and can keep our strong points—corner speed and [early] acceleration—without losing too much in braking. 
Added Lorenzo: “Marc is going to come back. He is going to win races and be competitive in the future.” Both Honda and Yamaha are eyeing each other’s advantages and seeking them for themselves. Crutchlow at the Jerez Monday test compared the present Honda swingarm with a new version, intended to improve grip in an area where the Honda is lacking—in long “hanging” corners. In other words, in bigger corners, the Honda men cannot use their normal stop/turn/go style but must match the Yamahas in edge grip for long seconds. I am guessing that the normal Honda swingarm is a bit stiffer than Yamaha’s, and that the new part is intended to make life easier for the tire edge during those long seconds. On the Yamaha side, Bradley Smith (Tech3) had this to say: “There are five ways to ride the Honda and let’s say two to ride a Yamaha. And, before Valentino’s resurgence, there was one. They are slowly allowing us to play a little bit more and figure out a little bit more how to ride these bikes, rather than (just) Jorge’s style. Because they realize at the moment it’s not working. Which is why I think I am going a little bit better this year than in the past (he topped FP2 at Le Mans, besting Lorenzo by 0.19 second). The bike is changing and they are allowing us to change things. “I think this is definitely part of the reason why the tires were working for Vale in Argentina and not for Lorenzo. Is it possible that the amount of time he spends on the edge of the tire was working against him on a fairly abrasive surface like Rio Hondo? I totally expected him to come good at the end of the race and at least fight for the podium, but it never happened.” 
The tire edge, being a mass of rubber poorly supported by the fiber carcass, flexes a lot and so heats up rapidly in use. Smith (who finished 6th behind Iannone at Le Mans) got a new fork to test at Jerez Monday: “Simple thing is, they gave me finally a set of front forks that allow me to brake where I want to brake. Basically, it’s to try to stop deforming the front tire. You’ve got more limit to play with as you go into the corner. Instead of being on the limit and it collapsing completely flat, you’ve got more leeway to play with it a little bit. Which, with a Yamaha, gives you confidence to release the brake, which (keeps) corner speed.” Lorenzo’s corner-speed style requires keeping the fork tire-preservingly soft pretty much to the bottom of its travel, because that’s where the bike is riding in mid-corner (remember, maximum cornering doubles the load on the suspension). A fork that soft is going to bam down on its travel limiter as Smith brakes in his preferred style, and that makes the tire move, spoiling his corner entry. The new fork internals can handle Smith’s higher rate of forward weight transfer during braking, so he arrives in control, rather than fighting for it. To sum up, the game is still best played by its top players, but the Ducatis are making continuing progress. New men like Crutchlow and Smith are gaining strength. The Suzukis and Aprilias are stuck doing R&D at trackside. Results: MotoGP of France
| Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Points | Team | Constructor | Time/Gap |
| 1 | LORENZO Jorge | 99 | SPA | 25 | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | Yamaha | 43'44.143 |
| 2 | ROSSI Valentino | 46 | ITA | 20 | Movistar Yamaha MotoGP | Yamaha | +3.820 |
| 3 | DOVIZIOSO Andrea | 4 | ITA | 16 | Ducati Team | Ducati | +12.380 |
| 4 | MARQUEZ Marc | 93 | SPA | 13 | Repsol Honda Team | Honda | +19.890 |
| 5 | IANNONE Andrea | 29 | ITA | 11 | Ducati Team | Ducati | +20.237 |
| 6 | SMITH Bradley | 38 | GBR | 10 | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | Yamaha | +21.145 |
| 7 | ESPARGARO Pol | 44 | SPA | 9 | Monster Yamaha Tech 3 | Yamaha | +35.493 |
| 8 | HERNANDEZ Yonny | 68 | COL | 8 | Pramac Racing | Ducati | +39.601 |
| 9 | VINALES Maverick | 25 | SPA | 7 | Team Suzuki Ecstar | Suzuki | +41.571 |
| 10 | PETRUCCI Danilo | 9 | ITA | 6 | Pramac Racing | Ducati | +42.789 |
| 11 | HAYDEN Nicky | 69 | USA | 5 | Aspar MotoGP Team | Honda | +53.636 |
| 12 | BAZ Loris | 76 | FRA | 4 | Athina Forward Racing | Yamaha Forward | +1'00.617 |
| 13 | BARBERA Hector | 8 | SPA | 3 | Avintia Racing | Ducati | +1'04.272 |
| 14 | LAVERTY Eugene | 50 | IRE | 2 | Aspar MotoGP Team | Honda | +1'05.259 |
| 15 | BAUTISTA Alvaro | 19 | SPA | 1 | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | Aprilia | +1'05.515 |
| 16 | PEDROSA Dani | 26 | SPA | 0 | Repsol Honda Team | Honda | +1'20.907 |
| 17 | DE ANGELIS Alex | 15 | RSM | 0 | Octo IodaRacing Team | Art | +1'21.663 |
| 18 | MELANDRI Marco | 33 | ITA | 0 | Aprilia Racing Team Gresini | Aprilia | +1 lap |
| 19 | MILLER Jack | 43 | AUS | 0 | CWM LCR Honda | Honda | DNF |
| 20 | ABRAHAM Karel | 17 | CZE | 0 | AB Motoracing | Honda | DNF |
| 21 | Cal CRUTCHLOW | 35 | GBR | 0 | CWM LCR Honda | Honda | DNF |
| 22 | Scott REDDING | 45 | GBR | 0 | EG 0,0 Marc VDS | Honda | DNF |
| 23 | Mike DI MEGLIO | 63 | FRA | 0 | Avintia Racing | Ducati | DNF |
| 24 | Aleix ESPARGARO | 41 | SPA | 0 | Team SUZUKI ECSTAR | Suzuki | DNF |
| 25 | Stefan BRADL | 6 | GER | 0 | Athinà Forward Racing | Yamaha Forward | DNF |
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