Did a 'useless' Friday reveal the true mindset of a MotoGP title challenger?

Formula 1 fans were left disappointed on Friday after low-hanging cloud meant practice for the Eifel Grand Prix at Nurburgring had to be scrapped. Over at Le Mans, MotoGP fans were a bit happier as dreary weather didn't put a halt to proceedings.

However, this writer can't say he was massively thrilled about today's action. Admittedly, this is quite a singular complaint, but one wet practice followed by a drying one really doesn't make analysing things for a Friday MotoGP feature very easy. Then again, predicting anything in this 2020 season hasn't exactly been straightforward.

The French Grand Prix marks the ninth round of the 2020 campaign and is the start of the unstoppable train towards the end of the season - with six races packed into the next seven weeks set to decide this year's world champion.

The day began with the Aprilia of Bradley Smith topping proceedings in the fully wet session, while Jack Miller on the Pramac Ducati headed Yamaha's Maverick Vinales on slick tyres in the tricky afternoon outing.

Unlike in every Friday session this year, there wasn't any long runs or race simulations owing to the ever-evolving drying track, while a spate of crashes in the afternoon curtailed some riders' plans.

As Petronas SRT's Franco Morbidelli noted when asked by Autosport if anything could be learned from a day like today: "Not much, sincerely. From a day like this you can only just ride the bike and enjoy. That's it, that's the only thing you can do."

If you're a championship contender, however, enjoyment wasn't exactly easy to come by. In the second Moto2 session, VR46's Luca Marini suffered a vicious highside at La Chapelle - the Turn 5 left-kink which plunges downhill into a long right-hander. Marini was flicked from his bike at the top of the rise and landed down hard. He escaped serious injury, but his weekend - and the following Aragon double-header are now compromised.

As we've seen in 2020, an injury pretty much ends your title hopes, and especially picking up one now would be catastrophic.

This is something current championship leader Fabio Quartararo was acutely aware of when he drew back the curtains in his motorhome this morning and was greeted by the Glasgow summertime weather. Marini's crash will have chilled his blood further.

"In these conditions, I took care because it is not two laps in FP2 that will make a big difference during the weekend," the SRT rider noted. "You saw Marini's crash in Turn 4, and here with Maverick there was a big difference in terms of lap times [between us]. So, in these conditions when it is tricky and we know that the day after will be better, I prefer to stay calm, to not do stupid mistakes, and that is why today I took it really easy and I think that was really important. In conditions like this you can lose the championship really easily."

"It's difficult to change something on the bike when we are riding three seconds slower than the dry lap times. So, this is what we need to fix a bit the bike tomorrow to have a better feeling because today I didn't have a really good one" Joan Mir

Despite his three wins in 2020, Quartararo's championship lead of Suzuki's Joan Mir is a slender eight points. Mir has scored 89 points since August's Czech Grand Prix, while Quartararo's Jerez-dominating form deserted him until the last round at Catalunya - meaning his haul of points was just 58 in the same time frame. With Aragon's long straights and hard-accelerations zones not likely to favour the down-on-power Yamaha, while likely suiting the Suzuki, "stupid mistakes" are exactly what Quartararo cannot afford.

Quartararo hasn't had much wet running in his MotoGP career, likewise Mir, while both haven't actually contested a wet grand prix yet in the premier class. That showed in FP1, with Mir 13th and Quartararo 18th, some 1.6 seconds off the pace. Mir struggled further in FP2 but does currently hold a provisional Q2 place while Quartararo in 11th doesn't - though the forecast is more favourable for the rest of the weekend, meaning the SRT rider isn't locked into a Q1 scrap yet.

"Difficult to find something positive from today," Mir said. "FP1 was OK because every lap I was improving and I was getting faster. I'm quite satisfied about the first session. Then the second session was even more difficult, the track was not completely dry and I was struggling to make the front work in a good way and I was not able to be fast.

"But it's difficult to change something on the bike when we are riding three seconds slower than the dry lap times. So, this is what we need to fix a bit the bike tomorrow to have a better feeling because today I didn't have a really good one. So, I think the bike has potential to be strong in this track, but FP3 we need to make one step more."

Vinales was second overall and Morbidelli inside the top 10 in seventh, while Valentino Rossi was also in the Q2 places before his best lap was deleted as it was set under a yellow flag and he was dropped to 12th. Without that, Quartararo would have finished up as the slowest Yamaha rider. But unlike Mir, the positives were easier to find.

"I can say that in the braking zone I was like them [the other Yamahas], but actually our bike position was not correct during the mid-corner, grip and acceleration where our bike was really different and I had zero grip," he explained.

"But the positive is that before anything and before checking data I knew where the problem was in FP1 and in FP2, so I think that helps me a lot and gives me a lot of confidence for tomorrow because I know that at the moment I need to go on the limit I will be fast. I think that this is really good and is one of the first times that I had this confidence."

Quartararo said his Friday at Le Mans and the way he approached it was a "great moment" for him. Last year the SRT rider was keen to set the pace in practice sessions, and that part of his nature still exists if you look at his tally of seven front row starts from eight races this year (including two poles).

Suppressing this meant he avoided the "stupid mistakes" he warned could ruin a championship. But it's not the first exercise in caution this week which suggests Quartararo's mindset has expanded from simply the "race-by-race" approach he claims is still his target at the moment to now accepting his role as the main protagonist in this championship.

While he wasn't the only one, Quartararo was a notable absentee from Wednesday's track familiarisation at the Algarve in Portugal, where 13 riders from the current grip completed laps on production bikes. On Thursday at Le Mans he said this was simply to avoid risking any injury ahead of another triple-header, but made no mention of the implications this would have on his title hopes.

And when pressed by Autosport on Friday if his caution through practice was now him switching his focus to the championship, he declined to indulge that theory.

"I don't say that I am not thinking about the championship, I think we don't need to do things that can make our title chance lost," he said. "Let's say we need to be clear about our potential, we have the potential to win the world championship, so at the moment I am taking it race-by-race.

"But, it is true that in these kind of conditions I prefer to not to take many risks that are not worth it because in the end we don't need to be on the limit all of the time. I know when I need to be on the limit, and I think today was correct to ride in this way."

Quartararo's nonchalance and ability to deflect the pressure that comes with being labelled a frontrunner in MotoGP has been endearing, and it shows immense maturity - as well as confidence - that chances to win the world title will still come to him through his career.

But the mask is beginning to slip and his own outlook on where he fits into the narrative of this championship battle is clearly beginning to align with what the rest of the paddock has been saying since the winter.