Hard day of work for Hopkins in France

After his near-perfect weekend in Shanghai, Hopkins admitted that things did not start so smoothly at Le Mans as he ended up fifth quickest overall.

"It's definitely been a work day," said the Rizla Suzuki rider. "We've gone through a lot of things, trying to improve all the time.

"The bike wasn't set up as well from the start as it was in China, so we have had to work a bit to get the bike how we need it to be. The whole crew have worked hard today and we made big steps forward.

"We are still looking to make things a bit better and I also have to work on my riding as I have to get a couple of lines sorted. Hopefully we'll get a good night's sleep and come out tomorrow and ride as hard as we can."

Teammate Chris Vermeulen ended up 13th on the timesheets but was optimistic of more progress tomorrow.

"After the poor weather here this week we have been quite lucky today to get almost a full dry day," he said. "The last 15 minutes of the second session was a bit wet, which was unfortunate as we were progressing really well with the bike.

"We've made pretty big steps and things are certainly heading in the right direction. We still need to find that bit more, but I'm sure that tomorrow we will get even better."