Dovizioso felt he was too aggressive in Le Mans MotoGP practice

Dovizioso was in the top five in both sessions, ending the day fifth fastest overall, and was confident that he will be in podium and victory contention on Sunday.

But he said he must be smoother for the rest of the weekend.

"We are in the top group but we are not the fastest," said Dovizioso.

"We have still to improve because the feeling was not perfect, [but] the speed was there.

"I was a bit too aggressive, Le Mans is very tight and slow track, with the MotoGP bike it's not easy to be perfect, smooth and use the best potential of the bike, it's easy to use too much power.

"I wasn't comfortable 100%. It is small things, we are not working on big things.

"I wasn't smooth enough and we have to find something on the set-up and give the possibility to ride better.

"I have to ride a bit better but we are not too far away and we are still there and have a chance to really fight for the podium and victory but we need something more from today.

"If we work in the right way I think we have a chance. We are a bit closer but like we expected this season, some competitors are stronger than last year."

Dovizioso's team-mate Danilo Petrucci was right behind him in sixth, but he started the afternoon session with a crash as his GP19 bizarrely folded under him on the kerbs as he exited the Chemin aux Boeufs esses.

Petrucci explained that specific part of the circuit is "critical" because acceleration happens during a small turn on the straight.

But he still felt his accident was "strange", saying "on this corner the track is going downhill and on acceleration it's going uphill.

"The problem is that the straight is not perfectly straight and with MotoGP you exit from that corner and the bike starts to wheelie and I maybe started to wheelie with a little bit of lean angle.

"Maybe this afternoon the track was not so perfect, we saw also from the crash, but maybe also the kerb was very cold.

"When I hit the kerb I immediately lost the front on acceleration when I was completely on the straight.

"A strange crash, I was in trouble from the morning in that part because you have always to choose the perfect lean angle for mixing the acceleration but you don't have to slide and you don't have to wheelie.

"It is a critical part and I discovered that the ground is very hard in that part."