Lack of speed puzzles Edwards

The American, who started from pole at the circuit in 2007 and finished third last year, had expected this to be one of his best events of the season, but could only manage 10th in Friday practice.

"It was a really weird day to be honest and I'm a bit confused," said Edwards. "My record proves that I like this track and we know the Yamaha is a really strong package in Le Mans, but right from the start nothing really seemed to work.

"It's obvious we've got a couple of small issues to solve for tomorrow because [works riders] Valentino [Rossi] and Jorge [Lorenzo] are not up near the top either. So out of the box nothing really seems to be working and that is very strange.

"From my side I just don't feel comfortable. Braking and corner entry I'm not that confident and I was running wide quite a lot. It felt like we had a lot of weight on the rear but I need to get my thinking head on tonight, sit down with my guys and figure something out.

"We'll check over some data with Yamaha too because right now I'm a little bit confused. But we've definitely got to do something to make it more comfortable."

His team-mate James Toseland was half a second slower in 12th, and felt he had been hampered by the lack of dry track time as he is still getting back up to speed after his pre-season testing was interrupted by two large crashes.

"From the off we're not too far away but we need time to try things on the bike," said Toseland. "I'm sure the guys behind me are saying the same thing, but we still need to find a comfortable setting and it is a frustrating scenario when you only have one session on a Friday.

"We made the wheelbase longer to get a bit more stability from the bike and I did eight laps and we made some changes based on comments about the good and bad points. But then it started raining so I couldn't see if the changes were moving me in the right direction."