Monster Yamaha's James Toseland reckons he is happy with his MotoGP qualifying performance at Le Mans this afternoon despite only managing to get onto the fourth row of the grid and says he is making progress.

The British two-time World Superbike Champion finished a little over a second behind team-mate Colin Edwards, who is on the second row, but thinks he can run a good pace with both the soft and hard-compound tyres.

“I felt much happier today and the team gave me a great bike. I'm sorry to my guys really for not being a bit further up the grid, but we're so close to being on the edge of the top six and I feel I'm making the progress I've been looking for," said Toseland.

"This morning it was too cold for the hard front tyre, so we didn't really run it, but with ten degrees more temperature this afternoon, it was much stronger and I felt much more comfortable and that helped me a lot. With the softer rear tyre, which I'm sure will be the race choice that should be a good combination. Sadly the final position is not great again and that is something that has hampered me this season.

I'm not far off the group in front at all but starting further down makes it tough to pick them off when we're all doing similar lap times. I really feel though that I'm getting close and today I started to enjoy riding and not thinking about always struggling. That was a good feeling and I know how important this race is for the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 Team and I'll be giving it 100 per cent as always.”