Eugene Laverty maintained his sequence of points finishes in every round of this year’s MotoGP championship as he was 11th at Le Mans on Sunday.

The performance keeps the Toomebridge man, who competes for the Apsar Ducati team, in ninth place in the series.

Laverty achieved his best MotoGP result with a fourth in Argentina in early April and has also achieved a ninth spot and two 12th place finishes.

Jorge Lorenzo led from start to finish to take the lead in the championship.

Previous series leader Marc Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso both crashed as they were duelling for second place the French race, which was the fifth round of this year’s championship.

That left Lorenzo’s Movistar Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi to take a comfortable second place 10 seconds off the pace with Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales completing the podium places.

Prior to the crashes involving Marquez and Dovizioso, Andrea Iannone exited while in second place.

Marquez was able to rejoin the race and finished 13th to limit his losses to Lorenzo, who now leads the table on 90 points, five ahead of his fellow Spaniard, with Rossi in third on 78.

Laverty has accumulated 33 points and his performances currently leave him ahead of Iannone and Dovizioso in the championship.