Valentino Rossi at le mans

Yamaha Factory Racing’s Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi will carry special logos on their motorcycles for this weekend’s Monster Energy Grand Prix de France.

The logos, to be seen on both of the factory outfit machines, will serve as tributes to Yamaha legend Jean Claude Olivier who lost his life in a road traffic accident earlier this year. Known as ‘JCO’, Olivier worked for Yamaha for 45 years until his retirement in 2010. He competed in the Dakar Rally for the company between 1979 and 1989, finishing second in 1985. He also guided motorcycle racing for Yamaha Motor France when holding the role of President. Also in remembrance of Olivier, a display of images will be erected in the Yamaha team hospitality area this weekend.

On-track, both Lorenzo and Rossi are hoping for more positive weekends after struggling amid the high temperatures of Jerez two weeks previous.

“I am looking forward to racing there,” Lorenzo begins of Le Mans. “I arrive with a lot of motivation after the Jerez results. Perhaps we expected better there but we struggled much more than we expected because of the extreme heat on the track. Fortunately we worked a lot on the test day afterwards to solve little problems. That session helped us to understand what the main problems had been on the Sunday.

“I've always had very good results at Le Mans and it brings me good memories. Last year, in fact, I got a victory in the wet by a great distance over the rest. I rode a perfect race, without making a single mistake and in terrible track conditions. I have won many times in France and think it's a good track for both me and the Yamaha M1.”

In 2012, Rossi may have finished almost ten seconds behind Lorenzo, but notched up his equal best finish of the year while competing for Ducati Team.

“Le Mans is a good track for me, not least because in the last two years I was able to reach the podium in both dry and wet conditions,” says the seven-time premier class world champion. “We hope to do the same and better with Yamaha because this is a good track for the M1.

“In Le Mans the weather will be very important because usually the weather is quite bad; it can be cold and wet, so we will see. We will have to work well, like always, and try to understand the weather and the track conditions. We will try to do the maximum, as always.”

Heading to Round 4, Lorenzo leads the Yamaha attack from third place in the championship which is headed up by Repsol Honda Team’s Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa. Rossi sits fourth and is now hoping to become the fourth different winner from as many races this season – something that has not happened since 2008.