The names and the venue are redolent of racing history, but the Bugatti circuit is anything but a grand, sweeping circuit in the old manner. Instead it is "a series of drag strips and U-turns", according to reigning World Champion Roberts. Other less charitable champions have dubbed it a go-kart track - and that was before a slow turn and a slower chicane were added last year.

This is not bad news for the fans, who are guaranteed elbow-to-elbow action as riders jostle for position under heavy braking, or squirm and wheelspin out of the slow corners with the throttles wide open. But it makes hard work for riders of 500cc Grand Prix motorcycles - capable of more than 200mph, but here constrained to an average speed less than half that.  Acceleration is vitally important at Le Mans.  

The French GP is a long-standing but irregular fixture on the calendar. The first event was run in 1951, the third year of GP racing - but in the 49 years since there have been just 36 events under that name. The French GP has also been particularly restless, moving from the first event at Albi to Rouen, Reims, Clermont Ferrand, Le Castellet, Nogaro and Magny-Cours over the years. the first time at Le Mans was in 1969, on an early version of the then-new Bugatti circuit, which uses the traditional pits and start-finish area of the famous 24-hour track Since that time the circuit has been changed considerably in detail, even since the last series ended in 1995; while the French GP moved down south again to Le Castellet. The move back to Le Mans last year was forced when the Paul Ricard at Le Castellet was sold to Formula One mogul Bernie Ecclestone last year - and it was a success, with good crowd support at a track which has not always been able to count on big numbers of spectators.

The Bugatti circuit originally used part of the famous Sarthe 24-hour car circuit - the pit straight and a daunting right-hand corner under the Dunlop bridge and down the hill - before looping off for the first of its U-turns and short straights. That daunting corner has been made slower and safer, and a slow chicane put before the bridge, before rejoining the run downhill and hard onto the brakes for the first of several more times in the 2.68-mile lap. The first- and second-gear U-turns are not uniform, however, and each has its own character and challenge, the last leading to a short, kinked back straight before the looping curves begin again, culminating in the slow right-hander back onto the pit straight. The lap record speed of less than 155 km/h puts Le Mans among the slower tracks on the calendar.

It is the fourth round of the 2001 season, which began in Japan and South Africa in April. The Grand Prix racers stay in Europe now until the end of September, before  four more flyaway races close the year. 

Le Mans brings a special landmark for the three-cylinder Proton KR3. One year ago, the brand new Mk3 version of the machine made its first appearance at the evocatively named Bugatti circuit. 

That was in first prototype form, and the new model showed immediate promise, setting faster lap times than its predecessor straight out of the box. In the end, however, with only one machine and a shortage of back-up parts, the team raced the old bike instead. 

One year later, after a racing season of track development followed by a winter of extensive refinement and further testing, the Proton KR3 is a fully fledged racing machine - faster, stronger and better in every way. It is very much ready for action. 

The lightweight alternative to the factory V4s returns to Le Mans with new rider Jurgen van den Goorbergh, after a steady start to the season, scoring championship points at every one of the three races so far. 

At the last round, the Spanish GP at Jerez, he qualified in the thick of the four-cylinder machines, leading the third row of the starting grid, only to run into handling problems in the race. The Proton had shown its potential, however, including an impressive top speed figure of 259.8 km/h on the circuit's relatively short straight - just five kilometres an hour slower than record-breaking race winner Valentino Rossi. 

Jurgen and the highly motivated England-based team are not expecting any birthday presents from Le Mans, which uses only a short section of the classic 24-hour car track before doubling back in the first of a series of slow U-turns. The stop-and-go nature is relieved by only one medium-fast kink on the back straight, giving it a character that suits drag-strip motorcycles with powerful brakes, rather than the more subtle blend of balanced performance, sweet handling and advanced aerodynamics offered by the Proton. 

"Compared with the V4 500s, we lack only bottom-end acceleration. We make it up with a potentially much higher corner speed. That pays dividends at flowing circuits with faster corners. Le Mans isn't like that at all," said Van den Goorbergh. 

"I've never ridden this bike there, but it has never been one of my favourite tracks. We have a reasonable top speed now, but Le Mans has too many corners where you are accelerating down a short straight from first gear, then braking hard again. We'll have to work on the front to get the bike comfortable under braking and give me confidence into the corners, and then try to open the throttle early" he said. 

There is always the possibility of exceeding expectations, but the Proton team's realistic target is to maintain their so-far perfect points record, and to continue the constant process of testing and developing at the same time. 

"We always knew our bike would be better at some tracks than others, and so far we haven't raced at any of those tracks," said Team Owner Kenny Roberts. "Every time we do race, we improve the combination, and we'll do the same at Le Mans." 

Team Manager Chuck Aksland was looking forward to making the most of the race. "The bike is one year old, but we didn't get too many laps on it last year, and we had a different rider on different tyres. It's pretty much a clean sheet of paper," he said.  "In Spain, we enjoyed seeing Jurgen qualifying well and getting off the line well. That had been a problem at the previous race, so it was an important step forward. It was also good to see the bike holding its own in straight-line speed. In the race, Jurgen had a handling problem. The whole philosophy of the bike is to go round the corners fast, and we need to get that corner speed back - but we had a lot of data from last weekend, and that gave us plenty to work with." 

Kenny Roberts (Jr.) thinks his Suzuki may suffer against the power of the Yamaha and Honda at Le Mans - "Le Mans has some diversity, and that is always nice for the riders. There's a lot of low-speed corners with drag strips out of them, which is not a good sign for us. The Suzuki is better on faster more flowing circuits, where you keep the speed high. The tests went pretty much as expected. Now we'll have to see how well we can get our bike working for France. I'll be racing 100 percent, as usual."

The Suzuki technical advisor, Warren Willing speaks about set-up - "Setting the bike up for Le Mans means more compromise to make the bike better in acceleration and braking - though that doesn't involve great changes. Our history shows that we ran the bike at Le Mans much the same as it had been at Jerez. Because of the hard acceleration out of the corners, getting the gearing right is crucial - it always is with us. We're trying to get the most acceleration possible out of a particular power characteristic, and you need the ratios just right."

The Marlboro Yamaha Team comes to Le Mans this week determined to put a couple of difficult GPs behind them and get back on track in the 2001 World Championship. Riders Max Biaggi and Carlos Checa went into the new season as serious title contenders after running super fast and consistent throughout their pre-season testing programme but when the racing started, luck seemed to mostly desert them.

After difficult races in South Africa and Spain, the team tested at Italian circuit Mugello last week, rebuilding confidence and fine-tuning settings for this weekend’s race at France’s legendary race venue. Biaggi and Checa have every reason to believe they can get back to where they rightly belong on Sunday, for they know they are fast at Le Mans, having qualified first and second for last year’s French GP at the track.

Even so, the Italian and Spaniard know they have plenty of work ahead of them, especially if they are to do anything about Valentino Rossi Honda, who has won each of the opening three GPs. It remains to be seen if Rossi can maintain his pace as the season continues and other riders and teams aim to chip away at his advantage. All three races this year have been dramatically fast – Suzuka was 25 seconds quicker than in 2000, Welkom a massive 35 seconds better and Jerez 23 seconds faster than the previous dry race in 1999.

Max Biaggi had a good start to his 2001 season, battling for the lead in a breathtaking Japanese GP and eventually finishing third. The result seemed to confirm the Marlboro Yamaha Team star’s status as one of the hot favourites for this year’s 500 World Championship. But the following two races were less kind to the former four-time 250 king.

Biaggi refuses to allow his last two results to affect his morale, preferring to keep focused on the future, rather than worrying about the past. "I’m not demoralized at all," he says. "Things aren’t as good as they should be but I know that all we need is a good run. We spent several days at Mugello last week, making some small adjustments and I know I’m fast at Le Mans, so I’m hoping we can do something there this weekend."  But he does not think the Yamaha ideally suited to the French track - "It’s not such a bad circuit but the biggest thing there is heavy braking and that’s one aspect of performance we’ve been working on for some while, of course I did get pole last year and if we work well again this time we’ll once again be able to get the best out of the bike. I think we can be fast there."

Biaggi's team-mate Carlos Checa aims to put some difficult times behind him at Le Mans this weekend and return to his fast pre-season form. The Spanish Marlboro Yamaha Team star has had a torrid five weeks since he crashed his Supermotard bike at home in the run up to the South African Grand Prix.

Like most other riders, Checa keeps himself sharp between races by practicing on non-GP bikes but the fall cost him dear, damaging a kidney, putting him in hospital for a week and forcing him to miss Welkom. He returned to action for his high-pressure home GP at Jerez, but suffered another punishing tumble in final qualifying.  Nevertheless he chose to race, battered and bruised, he rode to a dogged 14th-place finish, taking two hard-won World Championship points. 

"After Jerez we just need to reset and start again," he says. "I think we can now recover the form we seem to have lost. Jerez was one of those weekends you have to forget. I was so stiff after the race that I could hardly move, but I’m glad I rode and got some points. Last year I was fast at Le Mans. I did some good times in qualifying and Max only just beat me for pole. In the race we had a tyre-choice problem, I had a lot of wheelspin and couldn’t get the result I wanted. It’s a good track and it’s difficult to say who’ll be quick there this year. At this level it’s all about adapting from one track to the other as well as you can. During winter testing my bikes seemed to work well wherever we went, so I’m hoping we’ll be in good shape again."

Rossi has dazzled the biking world since he started his second 500 campaign in Japan on April 8. He won in thrilling style at Suzuka, then again at Welkom and Jerez, attracting fulsome praise from hard-to-impress former 500 king Mick Doohan.

“Valentino is riding the bike the way a 500 needs to be ridden and he’s riding it to its full potential,” says the Australian, who took five back-to-back 500 crowns under the guidance of crew chief Jerry Burgess, now Rossi’s mentor. “A lot of other 250 World Champions haven’t made a really big impact in 500s because they’ve struggled to get away from their 250 riding styles. Valentino has thought about it; he picks up the bike from the apex and rides it to the outside of the track, rather than making s continuous curve of the corner.  He really works at it, much more than I ever did! He watches a lot of videos, from way back, he watches what guys like Schwantz, Rainey and me used to do and he picks out the pieces of our styles that he wants to use. And he’s in the garage till all hours of the night, working with the crew. I think it’s going to be hard for the other guys to run with him, well, maybe not run with him, but it’s going to tough for them to really attack him.”

Of course, Rossi is far from unbeatable, and one man who will have the Italian youngster in his sights this weekend is 1999 World Champion Alex Crivillé (Repsol YPF Honda NSR500). Crivillé had a troubled title defence last year and is finally back to form after an injury-hit winter. The Spanish star won just one race in 2000, at Le Mans, and looks ready for a repeat of that French success after a stirring ride to third at his home GP two weeks ago.

“Alex is building up to his old form,” says Gilles Bigot, the man who guided Crivillé to the 1999 title. “I believe he’s on his way back, he’s enjoying his riding more than last year and he’s got his confidence back. He rode well in Spain, especially since Jerez is such a tough race for him, with so much pressure from the Spanish fans and media.  He has been consistently quick at the past two races but he’s struggled to put it all together for one super-quick qualifying lap, and since 500 racing is so close these days, you suffer in the race if you don’t have a good grid position. But he’s definitely better with every race and he likes Le Mans, it suits his style.”

Crivillé shares his crew chief’s optimism: “I feel like it’s 1999 again and I think I’ve shown everyone that I can still ride. Le Mans should be even better for us, but we’ve got to work hard to make sure we get a good grid position.”

Team-mate Tohru Ukawa (Repsol YPF Honda NSR500) joins Crivillé in hoping for a repeat of his 2000 Le Mans performance. Last year the Japanese rider won the 250 GP at the track and this weekend makes his 500 debut at the legendary French venue. “I think it’s a good track for me,” says Ukawa who won last May on his first visit to the circuit. “It would be great to get my first 500 win but it won’t be easy, especially with Rossi and Alex on such great form.” Ukawa has only one reservation about a first-time 500 win at Le Mans - French law forbids traditional post-race champagne celebrations!

Rossi’s toughest rival so far this year has been compatriot Loris Capirossi (West Honda Pons NSR500) who fought his fellow former 125 and 250 champ all the way to the flag at Welkom a month ago. Capirossi was expected to repeat the duel at Jerez but a poor start from second on the grid spoiled his chances.

“I think Loris and Rossi will be at it again at Le Mans,” avows Capirossi’s team boss Sito Pons. “I think they are the best riders at the moment. We’re very happy with Loris so far and we’re very happy with his equipment. Some people ask why we are running 2000 NSRs but we chose this chassis because both our riders felt very comfortable with it last year and we didn’t want to disturb that feeling this season. Our only concern was horsepower but we received new parts for our 2001 engines at Jerez and the top speed figures showed we’re right up there now.”

Capirossi’s team-mate Alex Barros (West Honda Pons NSR500) has yet to show the form that took him to two wins last year but Pons is certain the Brazilian will be fighting for more victories soon. “Alex is coming,” says Pons. “He didn’t start the season in perfect shape but he’ll be up front soon.”

Last year at Le Mans