Enea Bastianini produced a strong charge through the field in Sunday’s 27-lap Grand Prix of France to secure seventh place, while team-mate Jonas Folger delivered a steady ride to finish just outside the points in sixteenth.

Both Tech3 riders made strong starts, each gaining a position during the opening lap. Bastianini quickly worked his way into the Top Ten with a decisive move, before an early crash in the pack promoted him to ninth.

As the race settled, the Italian found his rhythm and began to hunt down Joan Mir having already gained five places. With a tightly packed group battling ahead, the Italian capitalised on the fight to reduce the gap further.

Meanwhile, Folger kept a calm approach, moving up to P18 as further incidents promoted the #94 rider up the field.

Now running in eighth, Bastianini continued to apply pressure as Mir and Fabio Quartararo battled for sixth. A crash for Mir in the closing stages handed ‘La Bestia’ seventh and a further incident promoted Folger to P16 - rounding out a collected ride from the German after an early crash in Saturday’s Sprint.

A solid result for Red Bull KTM Tech3 in front of the home crowd at Le Mans sees Bastianini hold tenth in the standings, with the team sitting eighth – tied on 39 points with LCR Honda – as the championship heads to Barcelona next week (15-17 May).

Enea Bastianini: “It was a good comeback today. Yesterday I crashed twice, so the main goal was just to recover positions and bring the bike home. In the end, seventh isn’t bad, but I expected a bit more.

“With the soft rear tyre, it was difficult to push. There was a lot of movement, and for me it’s hard to manage that instability. Especially at the end of the race, I wasn’t as fast as I usually am. Still, it’s a good result for the team, so I’m happy with that. It’s not easy, because the competition is very strong, but we know the areas that we need to work on. On my side, I need to keep working on qualifying - I’ve improved a bit, but we still need more.”

Jonas Folger: “It was a tough race, but the goal was to complete the distance and keep learning. I made good progress up to qualifying, but in the race I couldn’t match that pace and struggled with comfort and physical fatigue, especially in my left shoulder.

“Overall, the weekend was still better than expected. I came in with a focus on understanding the bike, but after yesterday’s crash I lacked some confidence and today it was full focus on getting the laps in and finishing. I want to say thank you to the Tech3 guys for being so patient and giving me the room to improve at such a high level..”

Nicolas  Goyon, Team Manager: “Well, a positive Sunday here for Red Bull KTM Tech3. We knew Bastianini had the pace to do a strong weekend. Unfortunately, we somehow missed the mark a little bit in qualifying, but starting 14th on the grid and finishing in P7 is obviously a great race. To me this just confirms Enea is in good shape at the moment so we can look ahead to Barcelona with a lot of confidence.

“On the other side of the garage, we’re happy with Jonas' performance. Nobody can really understand how tough it is to jump back on a MotoGP bike after so long, but it was a consistent race today. He didn't make any mistakes and got close to the points, so thank you, Jonas, for your help. Now the whole team is going to pack everything and move to Barcelona for the race next weekend.”