Although arriving at Le Mans for the French Grand Prix MotoGP in 8th position in the general classification, Ai Ogura (Trackhouse MotoGP Team), 1 point ahead of Marco Bezzecchi, official Aprilia Racing rider, the young Japanese rookie was not confident, not enjoying the Le Mans track.
"Le Mans is not, honestly, my favorite circuit, I've always had difficulties there." he declared in the preamble, and this was confirmed during the first sessions, the Trackhouse MotoGP Team rider qualifying only 19th after having suffered two falls, one in practice, the other in Q1.
“The weekend isn't going very well, but tomorrow is another day. I'm struggling in sectors 2 and 4, not to mention the left-hand corners; I've already crashed twice in those corners, so I'm lacking a bit of confidence. The front tire isn't responding properly at the moment. Right now, I'm very slow; there's a lot of room for improvement. It's difficult to completely turn things around in one day. We have to take small steps, so we have to at least try. If it rains, it'll just be a practice session. I've only had one wet session in MotoGP, in Austin. I'll take it as a test, to get used to these conditions.”
In the end, it wasn't just the rain that the number 79 had to face, but one of the most chaotic starts in the history of MotoGP, with strategic decisions and the associated stress being the key.
Ai Ogura was one of the drivers who finally started on slick tires after two long laps, before returning to wet tires. He finished far behind, almost a minute and a half behind Johann zarco. But he finished once again in the top 10, which given the conditions was not far from being a very satisfactory performance, even if the 3rd place of the other rookie, Fermin Aldeguer, greatly obscures his performance…
“Today’s race was a lot of fun. It was the most complicated race of the season so far and I changed bikes depending on the conditions. I was actually just following what the other riders in front of me were doing. I think it was a good experience because I was able to ride more than half the race on wet tires and that experience is exactly what I needed. I think today went well, there were a lot of opportunities, but I just followed the others. It was a crazy race, I gained a bit more experience in MotoGP, so that’s good.”
In the absence of a George Martin (Aprilia Racing) which is sorely missed at the Noale factory, and may be missed even more next year, Ai Ogura remains the first Aprilia rider, although he has dropped to 10th place in the championship.
Davide Brivio, Team Manager: “We are satisfied today because the conditions were very difficult, there were a lot of decisions to make before the start, during the race, and I think we did well to put both riders in the top 10. Raul drove a consistent race and handled the situation well. It was also very important for Ai to drive almost a full race in the wet and, at the end of the race, his lap times had improved a lot: he was very close to the top riders. Overall, we are satisfied today; we handled the situation well, we got good results, we gained experience and we didn't make any mistakes, so thank you very much to the whole team for handling these conditions so well. We scored points and we are looking forward to the next round.”
Ranking of the 2025 MotoGP French Grand Prix:
Classification credit: MotoGP.com
