Repsol Honda’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa are facing a tricky Le Mans MotoGP round as the Bugatti circuit is not known to one of the grippier ones on the calendar and the some of the track’s point-squirt nature won’t suit the aggressive characteristic of the RC213V.

Both Marquez and Pedrosa are still struggling with the amount of wheelspin generated by their works Honda and that, added to the harder-construction rear tyres now being used by Michelin, could lay out a difficult weekend for the pair but Marquez is hoping that - as in Austin where he cleared off despite the problems - the team may have some answers.

“I like the Le Mans track although it requires that you be ready to deal with many variables. To begin with, the weather: you never know what it will do there. Last year the temperature rose significantly on Sunday and we suffered a lot with front grip in the race. Rain also isn’t unusual there. In addition, the track has a stop-and-go layout, with many slow turns where braking and acceleration are crucial,” said Marquez.

“We’ll see if we find ourselves in a situation similar to Austin, where acceleration out of slow corners was a lot better than expected, or if we have to face a bigger challenge. During the last test in Jerez, we worked a lot on electronics and the chassis setting to find more grip, and on the balance of the bike to reduce wheelying. It’s always a compromise but I think we’ve gathered useful info for Le Mans and, knowing how far we’ve come since this winter and how quickly we’ve been able to react to many situations, I feel confident and look forward to starting the next racing weekend.”

Pedrosa added: “In the last race I couldn’t go full-throttle on the straights because the rear tyre was spinning too much, and I think that also in Le Mans a lot will depend on how the tyre will get grip from the track. Normally this isn’t a ‘super-grippy’ track, so we’ll have to continue working on that side in order to make it better. In the Jerez test, we tried to improve our feeling, testing different things such as suspension and some other solutions thought to provide more grip out of the turns and to make the bike faster into the tight corners. We’ll see if the info collected will be useful on a practical level.”