– Will there be another surprise winner in the MotoGP race at the 2026 French Grand Prix in Le Mans on Sunday? Quite possible, because according to the weather forecast as of Thursday, a 90 percent chance of rain is expected for Sunday afternoon.
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On the training day (Friday) it is expected to be dry in Le Mans, mostly dry on the day of qualifying and the sprint (Saturday). But for the day of the Grand Prix, some MotoGP riders are already preparing for a repeat of last year’s scenario. Back then, local hero Johann Zarco on the LCR Honda was the big winner, riding from almost the very back to victory in the rain.
Zarco started the 2025 French Grand Prix from eleventh on the grid. By the end of the first lap, however, he was classified 17th. His big advantage: unlike most others in the field, he had chosen rain tires from the start. When the others came into the pits for a bike change in the flag-to-flag race, Zarco stayed on the track and rode to a celebrated home victory.
Is Zarco secretly already thinking about a possible repeat of his 2025 triumph given the weather forecast for Sunday? “I guess the French fans are probably the only ones hoping for rain at the Grand Prix,” Zarco said with a grin at the press conference on Thursday in Le Mans.
“If it rains, my chances are certainly better,” says the LCR Honda rider, thinking not only of the weekend in Le Mans 2025 but also of the weekend in Jerez 2026: “In Jerez we saw that even with a good pace in dry conditions, I can’t fight for the podium. Towards the end of the race, I had big problems.”
“If it rains,” Zarco continues, “the chances for the podium are better. It’s not that I’m hoping for it on Sunday, because I don’t care. But I do know that I will try to take advantage of my chance if it rains.”
In the 2026 MotoGP riders’ world championship, Zarco is ranked outside the top 10 before the start of the French weekend, namely in 14th place. The standings are led by Aprilia factory rider Marco Bezzecchi. In the 2023 season, Bezzecchi (then on a VR46 Ducati) was the winner in Le Mans. Back then it was a dry race. What weather would the current championship leader prefer for Sunday?
“Wet would be okay, but if it’s dry, riding is more fun. That’s why I would prefer dry conditions,” says Bezzecchi and adds: “In the end, the conditions are the same for everyone. It will simply be about adapting accordingly and being fast with what we have.”
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Besides last year’s winner Johann Zarco, last year’s world champion Marc Marquez is also one of the rain specialists in the MotoGP field. At the recent race weekend in Jerez (Spain), he won the sprint on Saturday on a wet track.
And although Marquez with the Ducati GP26 is currently not as competitive and especially not as consistent in dry conditions as he was in 2025, he would prefer a dry French Grand Prix. “If you hope for rain, that means you are not fast in the dry. That’s why I hope for dry conditions. If it’s wet, it’s always a lottery,” says Marquez.
For Marquez’s Ducati teammate Francesco Bagnaia, the most important question regarding competitiveness in the rain is whether there is grip or not. “The riding style is not really what makes the difference. In my case, it depends on the grip whether I am fast in the rain or not,” says the MotoGP world champion of 2022 and 2023 and gives two examples.
“On the track in Thailand, I was extremely fast and won the last rain race so far (2024; editor’s note). On other tracks, however, I struggle a lot,” says Bagnaia and draws the connection to the weekend of the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix, when rain tires were used in qualifying and also in the sprint: “In Jerez, I had big difficulties. It was very difficult to lean the bike, I had no grip. For me, everything depends on grip [in the rain].”
In the KTM camp, where Jonas Folger is surprisingly getting the chance this weekend, they would basically have no objection if it rained again at the 2026 French Grand Prix, a year after the rainy 2025 French Grand Prix.
“Normally my KTM is very fast in wet conditions. But I think we are also prepared for dry conditions,” says KTM factory rider Pedro Acosta. Teammate Brad Binder also thinks that “our bike works really well in the wet.” However, he also admits: “Honestly, I would rather be super fast when it’s dry. But if it really is wet, then we will try to take advantage of the opportunity.”
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