Edwards quickest Yamaha

From Yamaha Racing

Following on from his eventful weekend in China two weeks ago, Fiat Yamaha Team rider Jorge Lorenzo was back on his M1 at Le Mans Friday, battling on despite the pain of two fractured ankles.

The injuries he sustained in China have not yet had time to fully recover but the 21-year-old is able to ride and finished the day an impressive fourth just behind Yamaha collegue Colin Edwards.

In the afternoon he continued to work on refining his settings and tire choices and the Michelin rider was able to improve on his time from the morning by 0.3 seconds, despite losing grip and sliding out at turn 2 near the end of the session. Luckily however he escaped any further injury and the damage to his bike was also minimal.

"The first thing I did when I crashed this afternoon was to stand up in order to check that I hadn't done any more damage," said Lorenzo, whose best time was a 1:34.487. "Luckily it's okay and I don't think I have made anything worse and at the moment I don't need to have any injections, which is better for me.

"The pain in my ankles is not so bad and to ride is okay, the main problem is that I am lacking the confidence that I know I should have, but I just need to keep thinking positively and I am sure that this will come soon."

Lorenzo's team-mate Valentino Rossi was sixth fastest, while the time sheets were topped by Dani Pedrosa.

Rossi was quick during the morning practice, setting the third fastest time, but in the afternoon work with different tires and settings were not as effective as hoped and he failed to improve on his 1:34.886 from the morning.

The Tech 3 Yamaha team made a fast start to its home race at the historic Le Mans circuit with Edwards posting the third fastest time in the opening free practice sessions. Edwards led the session for a long period as he moved to the top of the timesheets after just 16 minutes.

"I kept the China set-up that was a bit foreign for us there just to play around with it and it works really good here too, and I think we have already got a race tire," Edwards said. "My best lap was on the 16th lap of a race tyre and I did 25 laps on another rear tire, so we have pretty much got a race tyre sorted which is good and I'm not stressing about that at all.

"The biggest thing we have been concentrating on is traction. In the first three races we never had a problem with traction and in China we had a big problem. So with the big change we made in China it is working better. I tried the standard setting first this morning but as soon as I went to the China set-up I was faster immediately. The bike is a bit more nervous and twitchy under acceleration and I don't feel as smooth as I normally do, but I've got traction."

The 4.185km track has been a happy hunting ground for Edwards, who scored the first pole position of his career in Le Mans a year ago. The circuit was also the scene of his first Yamaha podium in 2005.

James Toseland was 15th fastest on a difficult first day for the British rider. Le Mans is the third in a run of five tracks that Toseland has no previous experience of, and he spent the majority of Friday mastering the circuit, while also trying to optimise the set-up of his YZR-M1 machine.