Johann Zarco (Monster Yamaha Tech 3) was forced through Q1 at the French GP, but the home hero kept calm and pushed to move through behind Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team) with much more to come.
In Q2, Zarco stole the spotlight in front of the home crowd as he took a front row on his final lap – crossing the line to just push fellow Independent Team rider Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) back to fourth.
With incredible pace at his home track and one trip to parc ferme as top Independent rider already, the double Moto2™ World Champion has a clear goal for race day: the podium.
Johann Zarco, P3: “The result is fantastic and I am delighted to qualify on the front row for my home race, even if I didn’t expect it. Before the qualifying, I was a bit nervous because of my fall this morning, but I ran a decent pace in FP4 which gave me my confidence back. Then in Q1, I was able to improve my time in the final run and I went on to finish in P2, which was great. After that, in Qualifying 2, I only had one rear tyre that I could use so I waited for a bit, but I watched the pace of my opponents and this encouraged me because I knew that I could do a good job. Eventually, both sessions went really well for me and now I will enjoy this moment because the fans were superb today and they want a podium tomorrow but so do I. Yet, being fast this afternoon gives me the confidence for this, plus the bike was perfect today and the team did a good job. In the race, I plan to stay with the top guys but you have to be calm in order to be fast here in Le Mans so I need to control my emotions and be strong at the start. Then I will fight and hopefully get a podium and if I achieve this, it will be truly awesome.”