Round 5: 2024 Michelin Grand Prix de France - Le Mans Bugatti Circuit

We’re Enea and Oliveira’s last laps done under yellow flags?

Pecco seems to have learnt the importance of being on it straight away rather than slowly building into the weekend.

JFM01 said:

Crap. Marc 13th, gonna need rain.


Brad qualifies in last.

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Marc is finished. Finito.

While I'm joking, I think there will be pile up in first corners so him starting at back will be ok, especially in rain.

Pecco tried to force a session stoppage by bringing out a fire extinguisher when there were no flames on his Ducati lol

I fancy Jorge for the sprint and Pecco for the race, unless it rains.

MichaelBolton said:

Pecco tried to force a session stoppage by bringing out a fire extinguisher when there were no flames on his Ducati lol

I fancy Jorge for the sprint and Pecco for the race, unless it rains.

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I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking that about the fire extinguisher.

JPSLotus said:

I'm glad I wasn't the only one thinking that about the fire extinguisher.

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It's Pecco... I immediately thought of that.

I'm usually a fan of single-lap time trials. In the current format you can "save" a pole position by crashing and causing a yellow in the final minutes.

Am glad I haven’t gone down the same rabbit hole as you boys…yet.

Interesting, Quartararo 8th in Q2.

That was satisfying

Started 13th, 4th after lap 1, finished 2nd. Nuff said.

They should award full points for the sprint. Winning the 100m at the Olympics isn't any less prestigious than winning the Marathon.

Faz said:

Am glad I haven’t gone down the same rabbit hole as you boys…yet.

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Que ?.

MM shows anything Bagnaia can do on a first lap he can do even better.

As I said pre-race Martin is the one everyone should be focussing on.

VR46 bring obsessed with MM doesn’t seem to be helping their cause overly.

Marc is simply a monster. I don't know how diminished he is from his pre-injury self, but still a beast.

Let's see what happened to Pecco because it was not normal obviously, but he'll ride another Sunday with all the pressure on his shoulders. Jorge the sprintmaster dominates the sprint as expected, he needs to focus for tomorrow, grab any kind of good result and not do a Jerez. Acosta is the new Marc in terms of saving near crashes.

Yes that save from Acosta was brilliant

michaelm said:

Que ?.

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The line of thought that Pecco deliberately crashed to protect his P2 then grabbed a fire extinguisher to put out an imaginary fire to extend the yellow flag. It didn’t work out to well if that was all a plan but if it had no doubt the finger would be pointed at Rossi.

Faz said:

The line of thought that Pecco deliberately crashed to protect his P2 then grabbed a fire extinguisher to put out an imaginary fire to extend the yellow flag. It didn’t work out to well if that was all a plan but if it had no doubt the finger would be pointed at Rossi.

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Fair enough, definitely a conspiracy theory, although i think as a general point yellow flags interfering with the end of FP2 and particularly qualifying is problematic. It is anti-climactic apart from anything else. I guess every rider could set their fastest lap earlier in the session concerned as is always said, and it is hard to think of a workable alternative, I don’t know if it could be reset to the laps remaining plus one without the crashed rider, but the tires are probably too shot for anything like that.

I didn’t read the thread till after the race, but while nothing was proved about Bagnaia it hardly showed those who remain MM partisans are labouring under the weight of delusion. Martin is the sprint king and very probably the fastest out there in general, but we don’t really know yet whether he will be able to overcome his habit of throwing his bike down the track on Sundays.

Bagnai is now only 5 odd points ahead of MM, 2 of them as a result of taking MM out at Portimao, and if he makes a second half of season run as he has for the last 2 seasons MM might be in a position to go with him, although he at least needs the final upgraded version of the GP23 imo to have a chance, and I doubt Gigi will fail to improve the GP24.

JFM01 said:

Crap. Marc 13th, gonna need rain.

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This didn't age well

MdubSTYLIE said:

This didn't age well

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Yeah, except it ain't Sunday yet. Does seem tho, that it always rains at Le Mans on the day of the main event. That's why I never look forward to Le Mans, besides, it's a boring-ass track. I still at least once a year go back and watch Marc and Dovi racing in the rain at Motegi. That .... is an all-time classic.

I couldn't help but wonder what was going through DiGi's mind when he saw Marc up the inside of him.

Bezzecchi crashing out of 2nd was disappointing because I was really hoping to see a straight fight between him and Marc in the closing laps. I wanted to see if he'd be flapping his mouth afterwards. But I guess getting pressured into crashing out was the same thing in some respects.

The VR46 group are a bunch of clowns. I'm not sure there's a bus large enough for all of them collectively.

Jorge rode really well. Didn't appear to be forcing anything, just stick to the racing line and hit the braking points and let it go from there.

The main event is going to be long and challenging for all riders. Pecco is certainly going to be really pushing hard tomorrow so we may see contact with him again. Just a question of who. But Martin is going to be interesting to watch since he seems to have more difficulty with the main race than he does the sprint.

Overall not a bad race, MM was incredible with that start. I actually thought he was going to try and make up 7 spots by around the chicane. I just didn't actually think it would happen. That boy is something else to watch.