A little before midnight, a light rain appeared on the Paul Ricard circuit. The two leaders, Suzuki #1 and Yamaha #7, tried for a few minutes to stay on slicks in the wet.
Meanwhile, Yuki Takahashi on the #5 Honda took them back around ten seconds per lap before stopping to switch to wet tires.
In turn, the leaders returned to the pit lane but while everything went well for the SERT Suzuki, the YART Yamaha struggled to restart and thus lost all the advantage it had regained in difficult conditions.
Dramatic twist a few moments later when Xavier Simeon returns, this time, to the box after a slight fall. Nothing serious but enough time lost for the Suzuki to lose command of the Bol D'or to the YART Yamaha led by Niccolò Canepa.
Once things stabilized, the latter led by 1 minute 26 seconds on the official GSX-R, a little before 00:30.
