QUALIFYING
The French crowd was already on fire on Saturday morning ahead of Free Practice 2 and the qualifying sessions, and so were both Maverick Viñales and Enea Bastianini, eager to place their RC16 as good as they can on the grid ahead of the team’s home GP. After a strong FP2 allowing him to finetune his package, Maverick headed to Q2 with the clear objective to place his RC16s on the first two rows. ‘Top Gun’ started with an already strong 1’30.289 on his first run, one that provisionally had him in 6th on the grid. Quick pit stop, new set of tyres, and let’s go for it again. As all 12 riders continued to push, Maverick could improve on his two last laps, and concluded the session with a last flying lap in 1 '30.023, one that made him jump to 5th on the grid, to secure his best season qualifying result. Objective complete for Top Gun. Having to go through Q1, there was Enea Bastianini aiming to place his RC16 well on the French grid. In a Q1 strongly disrupted by an early red flag, Enea’s fastest effort ended up being a 1'30.697, one that placed him in 18th on the grid for both Tissot Sprint and main event.

TISSOT SPRINT 
In front of a packed and loud Bugatti circuit waiting to cheer home heroes Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco, both Maverick Viñales and Enea Bastianini lined up on the grid for 13 laps of Tissot sprint craziness. It was an hectic start as always in Le Mans, with the first corners at Dunlop chicane always packed. Maverick struggled a bit to make his way through turns 3 and 4, losing one position to 6th. Intense battles were going on during that crazy first lap, with Maverick eventually exiting lap 1 in P7, leading teammates Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder. Ahead, there was Marco Bezzecchi who had taken a decent start from 7th. Francesco Bagnaia’s crash in lap 2 earned Maverick P6, while Acosta continued to put pressure on the number 12. Eventually, the ex-Tech3 rider overtook Maverick in sector 2 of lap 3, just before Bezzecchi made a mistake ahead, so that was still P6 for Viñales. Binder crashed behind, releasing the pressure from behind, with Johann Zarco behind more than 1 second away. Maverick maintained contact with Acosta who struggled to escape, with both riding at very similar pace. Maverick tried a move on the number 37 in Dunlop chicane at some point, but his late braking allowed Acosta to keep the advantage. An intense battle for 5th kept going until the very end, but a late mistake from Acosta in Turn 13 of the very final lap gave Maverick the 5th place at the checkered flag, his best sprint result in KTM orange. Starting in 18th, Enea Bastianini took an absolutely stunning start to his sprint, gaining 6 positions in just a few turns on the opening lap, to exit lap 1 in 12th just 0.194 seconds behind local hero Johann Zarco. The few crashes ahead helped him move up to the top 10 in a few laps, and he was in 10th 0.5 seconds away from Fabio Di Giannantonio after 4 laps of madness. Unfortunately, in a battle with Jack Miller, both went wide after a contact with each other following an attack from Enea. The Italian was forced to drop 2 positions, and that was P12 on lap 6. ‘Bestia’ tried to make up for the lost time, pushing, but once he tried to overtake Raul Fernandez, another mistake saw him drop to 13th. Unfortunate result in the sprint for Bastianini who had more potential today, but he will be looking forward to trying again in tomorrow’s main event, as lights go out at 14:00 local time (UTC+2).