Honda eye Le Mans resurgence

Although the Japanese manufacturer have been edged out by Ducati and Yamaha so far this season, Marco Melandri's chief engineer Antonio Jimenez believes they will be much stronger around Le Mans.

The lack of a long straight should not only help limit the straight-line speed advantage that Ducati have enjoyed, but also the tight and twisty sections should help play to Honda's acceleration strengths.

"We can compensate elsewhere on this race track," said Jimenez. "We are only doing 270km/h up the home straight, not 320km/h as we were in Qatar and China.

"We have a very strong package accelerating from first and second gears through to fourth and fifth, and a lot of that is in the tyres. We are only using sixth gear on the front straight.

"Our tyres are very similar here to how they were in Qatar in their construction. Only the compound has changed a little, especially with only a few left handers leaving us to play with a softer compound on that side of the tyre.

"We have to be on the front row in order to win here. But I really hope that tomorrow will be dry during qualifying."

Honda's works rider Dani Pedrosa topped the times in this morning practice session, while Gresini rider Marco Melandri went quickest in the afternoon.

The Italian admitted he was upbeat about his chances for the weekend following today's sessions.

"The handling of the bike is superb and that is important at a circuit with so much hard braking. I'm very happy with the tyres," Melandri said.

"Tomorrow I'll try and improve our performance on a qualifying tyre because my target is to qualify on the front two rows and fight for the podium."