Championship leader Marc Marquez tops FP1 of the French GP on the Le Mans Bugatti circuit. Andrea Dovizioso follows in second, being distanced by a mere 0.025s from the Spaniard. Yamaha's Vinales finished the session in P3, within a tenth from Marquez too.

Marc Marquez set the early pace in France, testing out numerous updates including a new fairing used in Jerez first. The Honda rider clocked a 1'32''476, which was enough to do better than Andrea Dovizioso on his Ducati.

The Italian is looking to bounce back from Jerez's unfortunate crash involving his teammate Lorenzo and him. Both Yamaha riders are also eager to deliver, following a slow start to their 2018 campaign due to technical issues. This weekend's circuit is supposed to be matching the features of the M1, which seems to be confirmed by the 3rd fastest laptime set by Maverick Vinales. Teammate Valentino Rossi was down in 6th, but just 0.3s off the top.

Cal Crutchlow did not manage to join the top 3 within a tenth from Marquez and had to settle for fourth on his LCR Honda. Johann Zarco follows in 5th, starting off his home race 0.021s behind Crutchlow.

The first Suzuki appears in 7th with Andrea Iannone, ahead of Jorge Lorenzo (+ 0.608s) and Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro's KTM bikes rounding up the top 10.

Alma Pramac Ducati's Danilo Petrucci and Jack Miller occupied the first 2 spots behind the 10 fastest, with the Australian crashing out at the Dunlop chicane. Marc VDS's Tom Luthi blundered at that corner as well in the closing stages of the session.